pp-hotel-goat

Hotel GOAT — 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:

1. Install via the Printing Press installer. It defaults binaries to $HOME/.local/bin on macOS/Linux and %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\PrintingPress\bin on Windows:

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

2. Verify: hotel-goat-pp-cli --version
3. Ensure the reported install directory is on $PATH for the agent/runtime that will invoke this skill.

If the npx install fails (no Node, offline, etc.), fall back to a direct Go install (requires Go 1.26.6 or newer):

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

If --version reports "command not found" after install, the runtime cannot see the binary directory on $PATH. Do not proceed with skill commands until verification succeeds.

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.

  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:

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 0 means at least one match; exit code 2 means no confident match — fall back to --help or use a narrower query.

Recipes

Filtered search with European currency

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

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

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

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

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:

  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:

{
  "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:

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

MCP Server Installation

1. Install the MCP server:

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

2. Register with Claude Code:

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

3. Verify: claude mcp list

Direct Use

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

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

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