Google Hotels — Printing Press CLI

Prerequisites: Install the CLI

This skill drives the

hotel-goat-pp-cli

binary. You must verify the CLI is installed before invoking any command from this skill. If it is missing, install it first:

Install via the Printing Press installer:

bash

npx -y @mvanhorn/printing-press-library install hotel-goat --cli-only

Verify:
```
hotel-goat-pp-cli --version
```
Ensure
```
$GOPATH/bin
```
(or
```
$HOME/go/bin
```
) is on
```
$PATH
```
.

If the

npx

install fails (no Node, offline, etc.), fall back to a direct Go install (requires Go 1.26.3 or newer):

bash

go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/travel/hotel-goat/cmd/hotel-goat-pp-cli@latest

--version

reports "command not found" after install, the install step did not put the binary on

$PATH

. Do not proceed with skill commands until verification succeeds.

hotel-goat fans out across two cash-price sources by default:

Google Hotels — scraped from the server-rendered page
Trivago — called via the public Trivago MCP server (no key); aggregates OTA rates from Booking.com, Expedia, Agoda, Hotels.com, Priceline, etc.

Control which sources run with

--source google|trivago|both

on the

hotels

command. Default is

both

. Matched hotels (lat/lng within 250m and name token-overlap ≥ 0.5, with both sides carrying ≥2 informative tokens after stopword stripping) get a unified

prices[]

array with one entry per source; Trivago-only properties are appended as standalone rows with

property_token

prefixed

trivago:

Trivago is geolocated server-side and returns EUR regardless of client hints. When the headline currency differs from Trivago's, each Trivago price is converted via the Frankfurter ECB FX endpoint (free, no key, 24h cache) so cross-source comparisons are apples-to-apples. Source label semantics:

```
trivago/<OTA> [EUR 802 -> USD]
```
— FX conversion ran. The numeric
```
price
```
field is in the target currency; the original EUR amount is in the label.
```
trivago/<OTA> [EUR]
```
— FX lookup failed. The numeric
```
price
```
is native EUR and the headline
```
price_per_night
```
is NOT overridden.
```
trivago/<OTA>
```
(no suffix) — currencies already matched.

v1 ships:

```
hotels <loc> <ci> <co>
```
— multi-source search with brand / hotel-class / price / rating / amenity /
```
--source
```
filters
```
dates <loc> --from --to --nights N
```
— sweep a date window for the cheapest pair per stay
```
near "<address>" --radius Nmi
```
— geo-radius around any address (auto-geocoded via OSM Nominatim)
```
hotel show/reviews <token>
```
— single-property detail + reviews
```
wishlist add/list/remove <token>
```
— local SQLite save

Brand-loyalty expansion, full month-window scans, price drift, multi-room family logic, and per-OTA breakdown are deferred to v0.2.

When to Use This CLI

Reach for hotel-goat whenever a user needs to search hotels by location and date range, find the cheapest dates in a window, find hotels near a specific address, or save properties to a local wishlist. Pair it with flight-goat when composing an itinerary; both share the same flag and envelope shape so a future travel-pp-cli orchestrator is a thin merge layer. Skip it when the user wants to actually book (Google Hotels is metasearch — hotel-goat surfaces the OTA deep-link, then the user books on the OTA).

When Not to Use This CLI

Do not activate this CLI for requests that require creating, updating, deleting, publishing, commenting, upvoting, inviting, ordering, sending messages, booking, purchasing, or changing remote state. This printed CLI exposes read-only commands for inspection, export, sync, and analysis.

Unique Capabilities

These capabilities aren't available in any other tool for this API.

Agent-native plumbing

hotels
— Dotted-path selection through nested results.prices[], results.booking_urls, results.images[]. Returns only the fields the agent needs.
Use when you need only a couple of fields per hotel rather than the full nested response.
bash
```
hotel-goat-pp-cli hotels "San Francisco" 2026-08-15 2026-08-17 --agent --select results.name,results.rating,results.price_per_night,results.booking_urls.primary
```

Command Reference

hotels — Hotel search results from Google Hotels for a location + date range

```
hotel-goat-pp-cli hotels
```
— Search hotels by location and date range.

hotel — Single-property commands

```
hotel-goat-pp-cli hotel show <property-token>
```
— Full property detail by Google's property_token

hotel-goat-pp-cli hotel reviews <property-token>

— Review breakdown for one property

Finding the right command

When you know what you want to do but not which command does it, ask the CLI directly:

bash

hotel-goat-pp-cli which "<capability in your own words>"

which

resolves a natural-language capability query to the best matching command from this CLI's curated feature index. Exit code

means at least one match; exit code

means no confident match — fall back to

--help

or use a narrower query.

Recipes

Filtered search with European currency

bash

hotel-goat-pp-cli hotels "Paris" 2026-07-20 2026-07-23 --currency EUR --hotel-class 4,5 --max-price 300 --sort cheapest

Premium 4-5 star hotels in Paris under €300/night, sorted cheapest.

Agent-friendly nested-field selection

bash

hotel-goat-pp-cli hotels "San Francisco" 2026-08-15 2026-08-17 --agent --select results.name,results.rating,results.price_per_night,results.booking_urls.primary

Returns only the four fields the agent needs, not the full per-result payload.

Property detail by token

bash

hotel-goat-pp-cli hotel show <property-token>

Full property details (amenities, nearby places, full image gallery) from a property_token returned by the search.

Save and recall properties

bash

hotel-goat-pp-cli wishlist add <property-token> && hotel-goat-pp-cli wishlist list

Local-SQLite wishlist: save properties from searches, list them later.

Health check

bash

hotel-goat-pp-cli doctor

Confirms network reachability to Google Hotels and that the parser still finds AF_initDataCallback blobs.

Auth Setup

No authentication required. Google Hotels SSR is publicly accessible. Set

Accept-Language

via the system locale; pass

--currency EUR

to get pricing in another currency.

Run

hotel-goat-pp-cli doctor

to verify setup.

Agent Mode

Add

--agent

to any command. Expands to:

--json --compact --no-input --no-color --yes

Pipeable — JSON on stdout, errors on stderr
Filterable —
```
--select
```
keeps a subset of fields. Dotted paths descend into nested structures; arrays traverse element-wise. Critical for keeping context small on verbose APIs:
bash
```
hotel-goat-pp-cli hotels "San Francisco" 2026-08-15 2026-08-17 --agent --select results.name,results.price_per_night,results.booking_urls.primary
```
Previewable —
```
--dry-run
```
shows the request without sending
Offline-friendly — sync/search commands can use the local SQLite store when available
Non-interactive — never prompts, every input is a flag
Read-only — do not use this CLI for create, update, delete, publish, comment, upvote, invite, order, send, or other mutating requests

Response envelope

Commands that read from the local store or the API wrap output in a provenance envelope:

json

{
  "meta": {"source": "live" | "local", "synced_at": "...", "reason": "..."},
  "results": <data>
}

Parse

.results

for data and

.meta.source

to know whether it's live or local. A human-readable

N results (live)

summary is printed to stderr only when stdout is a terminal AND no machine-format flag (

--json

--csv

--compact

--quiet

--plain

--select

) is set — piped/agent consumers and explicit-format runs get pure JSON on stdout.

Agent Feedback

When you (or the agent) notice something off about this CLI, record it:

hotel-goat-pp-cli feedback "the --since flag is inclusive but docs say exclusive"
hotel-goat-pp-cli feedback --stdin < notes.txt
hotel-goat-pp-cli feedback list --json --limit 10

Entries are stored locally at

~/.hotel-goat-pp-cli/feedback.jsonl

. They are never POSTed unless

HOTEL_GOAT_FEEDBACK_ENDPOINT

is set AND either

--send

is passed or

HOTEL_GOAT_FEEDBACK_AUTO_SEND=true

. Default behavior is local-only.

Write what surprised you, not a bug report. Short, specific, one line: that is the part that compounds.

Output Delivery

Every command accepts

--deliver <sink>

. The output goes to the named sink in addition to (or instead of) stdout, so agents can route command results without hand-piping. Three sinks are supported:

Sink	Effect
`stdout`	Default; write to stdout only
`file:<path>`	Atomically write output to `<path>` (tmp + rename)
`webhook:<url>`	POST the output body to the URL ( `application/json` or `application/x-ndjson` when `--compact` )

Unknown schemes are refused with a structured error naming the supported set. Webhook failures return non-zero and log the URL + HTTP status on stderr.

Named Profiles

A profile is a saved set of flag values, reused across invocations. Use it when a scheduled agent calls the same command every run with the same configuration - HeyGen's "Beacon" pattern.

hotel-goat-pp-cli profile save briefing --json
hotel-goat-pp-cli --profile briefing hotels "San Francisco" 2026-08-15 2026-08-17
hotel-goat-pp-cli profile list --json
hotel-goat-pp-cli profile show briefing
hotel-goat-pp-cli profile delete briefing --yes

Explicit flags always win over profile values; profile values win over defaults.

agent-context

lists all available profiles under

available_profiles

so introspecting agents discover them at runtime.

Exit Codes

Code	Meaning
0	Success
2	Usage error (wrong arguments)
3	Resource not found
5	API error (upstream issue)
7	Rate limited (wait and retry)
10	Config error

Argument Parsing

Parse

$ARGUMENTS

Empty,
help
, or
--help
→ show
```
hotel-goat-pp-cli --help
```
output
Starts with
install
→ ends with
```
mcp
```
→ MCP installation; otherwise → see Prerequisites above
Anything else → Direct Use (execute as CLI command with
```
--agent
```
)

MCP Server Installation

Install the MCP server:

bash

go install github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/library/travel/hotel-goat/cmd/hotel-goat-pp-mcp@latest

bash

claude mcp add hotel-goat-pp-mcp -- hotel-goat-pp-mcp

Verify:
```
claude mcp list
```

Direct Use

Check if installed:
```
which hotel-goat-pp-cli
```
If not found, offer to install (see Prerequisites at the top of this skill).
Match the user query to the best command from the Unique Capabilities and Command Reference above.

Execute with the

--agent

flag:

bash

hotel-goat-pp-cli <command> [subcommand] [args] --agent

If ambiguous, drill into subcommand help:
```
hotel-goat-pp-cli <command> --help
```
.

pp-hotel-goat

NPX Install

Tags

SKILL.md Content

Google Hotels — Printing Press CLI

Prerequisites: Install the CLI

When to Use This CLI

When Not to Use This CLI

Unique Capabilities

Agent-native plumbing

Command Reference

Finding the right command

Recipes

Filtered search with European currency

Agent-friendly nested-field selection

Property detail by token

Save and recall properties

Health check

Auth Setup

Agent Mode

Response envelope

Agent Feedback

Output Delivery

Named Profiles

Exit Codes

Argument Parsing

MCP Server Installation

Direct Use