Hermes Travel Skills

Hermes Travel Skills — Real-Time Travel Tools for the Nous Hermes Agent

> Open-source Hermes Agent skills that give your AI agent live place search, weather, and flight status through official APIs — one fast, deterministic call instead of slow, flaky web scraping.

Hermes Travel Skills is an open-source pack of real-time travel tools (skills) for the Nous Research Hermes Agent. It equips an AI agent with three deterministic, API-backed capabilities — Google Places search, live weather, and live flight status — that replace the slow, error-prone "search the web and parse the page" fallback. Each skill is a single Python script with zero pip dependencies (standard library only) and is MIT licensed.

> I built these while using Hermes as a family travel planner. I couldn't find them on any skill registry, so I'm open-sourcing them for the Hermes and AI-agent community.

Keywords: Hermes Agent skills · Nous Research · AI agent travel tools · Google Places API (New) · Google Weather API · aviationstack flight tracker · LLM tool use · open-source AI agent · real-time travel API.

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Contents

• [Why these exist — the reasoning](#why-these-exist--the-reasoning)
• [The skills](#the-skills)
• [Use cases — what you actually ask the agent](#use-cases--what-you-actually-ask-the-agent)
• [Getting the API keys](#getting-the-api-keys)
• [Installing into Hermes — step by step](#installing-into-hermes--step-by-step)
• [FAQ](#faq)
• [Repo layout](#repo-layout)

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Why these exist — the reasoning

Out of the box, when a Hermes agent needs live travel facts ("a good coffee place open now near Times Square", "what's the weather in Vegas", "what gate is my flight?"), it falls back to generic web search + page parsing. In practice that path is:

• Slow & loopy — search → open results → parse HTML → maybe hit a CAPTCHA or consent wall → retry. Each step is another agent iteration.
• Flaky — page layouts change, anti-bot walls block the fetch, and the agent sometimes re-reads the same page several times because the answer didn't survive its context window.
• Expensive — every iteration re-sends the whole conversation to the model, so one "where should we eat?" can balloon into many LLM calls and a lot of tokens.
• Stale or made-up — without a structured source the model leans on training-data memory for ratings, hours, and gates, which are exactly the facts that change.

Giving the agent purpose-built tools backed by official APIs collapses all of that into one deterministic call that returns clean, structured, current data:

| | Generic web search | Hermes Travel Skills | |---|---|---| | Agent iterations | many (search, open, parse, retry) | one tool call | | CAPTCHAs / consent walls | frequent | none (official API) | | Data freshness | stale / guessed | live (ratings, open-now, gates) | | Output | unstructured HTML | clean structured text | | Token cost | high (loops re-send history) | low (single round-trip) |

The result: faster, more reliable, and noticeably cheaper answers for the exact questions a travel agent gets all day.

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The skills

This repo ships three Hermes Agent skills. Each is a folder under [skills/](skills/) with a SKILL.md (what the agent reads to decide when to use it) and one Python script.

| Skill | What it does | API | Key env var | |---|---|---|---| | google_places | Top-rated & open-now restaurants, cafés, and attractions with live ratings, hours, reviews, and tappable Google Maps links. Natural-language search, strict-radius nearby, and a details deep-dive. | Google Places API (New) | GOOGLE_PLACES_API_KEY | | google_weather | Live current conditions for any city or landmark (geocodes the name, then fetches weather). | Google Weather API (+ Places for geocoding) | GOOGLE_WEATHER_API_KEY (falls back to GOOGLE_PLACES_API_KEY) | | aviationstack | Live flight status — gate, terminal, boarding, delay, and baggage belt — by IATA flight number or airport board. | aviationstack | AVIATIONSTACK_API_KEY |

The scripts run standalone too (no Hermes required), which makes them easy to test:

export GOOGLE_PLACES_API_KEY=...   # see "Getting the API keys" below
python skills/google_places/google_places.py search "top rated coffee around Times Square" --open
python skills/google_weather/google_weather.py lookup "Las Vegas"
python skills/aviationstack/live_flight_tracker.py flight LY8

google_places — places, restaurants & attractions

# Natural-language search (~90% of uses) — put quality words in the query, Google ranks on them
python google_places.py search "popular steak house in New York" --min-rating 4.5 --open --top 5

# Strict radius around an anchor (name auto-geocoded, or raw lat/lng)
python google_places.py nearby "Williamsburg Brooklyn" 800 cafe --open
python google_places.py nearby 40.758 -73.985 600 restaurant,cafe

# Deep dive on one place (full weekly hours, coordinates, top reviews)
python google_places.py details 

google_weather — live conditions

python google_weather.py lookup "Yosemite"

aviationstack — live flight status

python live_flight_tracker.py flight LY8                       # today only on the free tier
python live_flight_tracker.py airport TLV dep
python live_flight_tracker.py airport MIA arr active

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Use cases — what you actually ask the agent

You don't type commands at the agent; you ask in plain language and Hermes picks the right skill and arguments for you. Real examples:

Live flight status (aviationstack)

| You ask | The agent runs | What it reads back | |---|---|---| | "Which baggage belt is the luggage from flight LY574 coming out on?" | flight LY574 | arrival.baggage → the carousel/belt number | | "Is my flight IZ212 departing on time, or is it delayed?" | flight IZ212 | departure.delay → 0 = on time ✓, otherwise the delay in minutes | | "Where do I pick up my bags — which carousel?" (flight known from context) | flight | arrival.baggage | | "Has flight AA100 landed yet?" | flight AA100 | flight status + arrival.actual (actual landing time) | | "What gate and terminal does LY8 leave from?" | flight LY8 | departure.terminal and departure.gate |

> The agent resolves the flight number from context (your itinerary, a forwarded confirmation, a ticket screenshot), so you rarely have to spell out the IATA code. Remember the free tier is same-day only — ask on the day of travel.

Places & recommendations (google_places)

| You ask | The agent runs | |---|---| | "Find a great coffee place open right now near Times Square." | search "top rated coffee around Times Square" --open | | "Recommend a highly-rated steakhouse in New York." | search "popular steak house in New York" --min-rating 4.5 | | "Any good cafés within walking distance of Williamsburg?" | nearby "Williamsburg Brooklyn" 800 cafe --open | | "Tell me more about this place — hours and reviews." | details |

Weather (google_weather)

| You ask | The agent runs | |---|---| | "Do I need an umbrella in Las Vegas today?" | lookup "Las Vegas" | | "How warm is it in Yosemite right now — should I pack a coat?" | lookup "Yosemite" |

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Getting the API keys

1. Google Maps Platform key (google_places + google_weather)

Both Google skills share one Google Maps Platform key.

1. Go to the Google Cloud Console and create (or pick) a project.
2. Enable billing on the project. Google requires a billing account even for the free monthly credit; these APIs have a generous free tier.
3. Open APIs & Services → Library and enable:

• Places API (New) — used by google_places and for geocoding in google_weather.
• Weather API — used by google_weather.

1. Go to APIs & Services → Credentials → Create credentials → API key. Copy the key.
2. (Recommended) Click the key → Restrict key → under API restrictions limit it to Places API (New) and Weather API.
3. Export it:

``bash export GOOGLE_PLACES_API_KEY="your-key" # google_weather reuses this automatically; set GOOGLE_WEATHER_API_KEY only if you want a separate key ``

> If weather calls fail with a permission error, the Weather API isn't enabled on that key's project (step 3).

2. aviationstack key (aviationstack)

1. Sign up at aviationstack.com and pick the Free plan.
2. Copy your API access key from the dashboard.
3. Export it:

``bash export AVIATIONSTACK_API_KEY="your-key" ``

Free-tier limits worth knowing: same-day flights only (a past/future date needs a paid plan), HTTP-only (the key travels unencrypted in the URL — don't reuse a sensitive key), and 100 requests/month. Query a flight on its travel day, one call per question, never poll.

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Installing into Hermes — step by step

These are Hermes Agent skills. A skill is just a folder (SKILL.md + script) placed under your agent's skills directory; Hermes lazily loads SKILL.md when the agent decides it's relevant.

A. If you already run Hermes

1. Find your HERMES_HOME (the agent's data dir — often ~/.hermes, or /data/.hermes on a server / Railway deploy). Skills live in $HERMES_HOME/skills///.

1. Copy the skills in. This repo's skills/ maps onto a travel/ category:

``bash git clone https://github.com/shlomsh/hermes-travel-skills.git mkdir -p "$HERMES_HOME/skills/travel" cp -r hermes-travel-skills/skills/* "$HERMES_HOME/skills/travel/" ` You should now have e.g. $HERMESHOME/skills/travel/googleplaces/SKILL.md`.

1. Set the API keys where the agent's runtime can read them — add them to $HERMES_HOME/.env:

``bash GOOGLE_PLACES_API_KEY=your-google-maps-platform-key AVIATIONSTACK_API_KEY=your-aviationstack-key # GOOGLE_WEATHER_API_KEY=... # optional; defaults to GOOGLE_PLACES_API_KEY ``

1. Restart the agent / gateway so it picks up the new .env and rescans skills.

1. Verify. Ask the agent something that should trigger a skill — "find a top-rated coffee place open now near Times Square", "what's the weather in Vegas", "what gate is flight LY8?". Hermes will skill_view the matching SKILL.md and run the script. To confirm the scripts themselves work first, run the standalone commands from [The skills](#the-skills) above.

B. From scratch (fresh Hermes install)

# 1. Install Hermes Agent (see its README for the current version/extras)
git clone https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent.git /opt/hermes-agent
cd /opt/hermes-agent
uv pip install -e ".[all]"

# 2. Point HERMES_HOME somewhere persistent and initialize it
export HERMES_HOME="$HOME/.hermes"
mkdir -p "$HERMES_HOME"

# 3. Drop these skills in
git clone https://github.com/shlomsh/hermes-travel-skills.git
mkdir -p "$HERMES_HOME/skills/travel"
cp -r hermes-travel-skills/skills/* "$HERMES_HOME/skills/travel/"

# 4. Add your keys to $HERMES_HOME/.env (see step A.3)

# 5. Run the gateway
hermes gateway

> No Python dependencies to install — every script uses only the Python standard library, so as long as the agent can run python, the skills work.

Requirements

• Python 3.8+ (standard library only — no pip install needed)
• A Hermes Agent install (for agent use) — or just run the scripts directly
• The API keys above

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FAQ

What is the Nous Research Hermes Agent?

Hermes Agent is an open-source AI agent framework from Nous Research. It runs a tool-calling LLM that can use skills — small, self-contained capabilities the agent loads on demand — to take real actions like searching, reading files, and calling APIs.

What is a Hermes "skill"?

A skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md description plus a script. Hermes reads SKILL.md to decide when the skill is relevant, then runs the script to do the work. These three travel skills follow that exact pattern.

Do these skills need any Python packages?

No. Every script uses only the Python standard library (urllib, json, os, sys, datetime). There is nothing to pip install — if the agent can run python, the skills work.

Which APIs and keys do I need?

google_places and google_weather share one Google Maps Platform key (enable Places API (New) and Weather API). aviationstack uses a free aviationstack key. See [Getting the API keys](#getting-the-api-keys).

Are they free to run?

Largely yes on light, personal use. Google Maps Platform has a generous monthly free tier; aviationstack's free plan allows same-day lookups, 100 requests/month. Heavy usage may incur Google API costs.

Can I use these outside of Hermes?

Yes. Each script is a standalone CLI — set the relevant environment variable and run it directly (see the [standalone examples](#the-skills)). That also makes them easy to drop into other AI agent frameworks or MCP-style tool setups.

How are these different from letting the agent just search the web?

Web search makes the agent open and parse pages, fight CAPTCHAs, and loop on retries — slow, flaky, and token-heavy. These skills hit an official API and return clean structured data in one deterministic call. See [Why these exist](#why-these-exist--the-reasoning).

Which travel use cases do they cover?

Restaurant/café/attraction recommendations with live ratings and open-now status, current weather for any location, and live flight status (gate, terminal, delay, baggage belt). Contributions for transit, currency, and visa/entry-rule skills are welcome.

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Repo layout

hermes-travel-skills/
├── skills/
│   ├── google_places/      SKILL.md + google_places.py     (search / nearby / details)
│   ├── google_weather/     SKILL.md + google_weather.py    (lookup)
│   └── aviationstack/      SKILL.md + live_flight_tracker.py  (flight / airport)
├── .env.example            template for the three keys
├── LICENSE                 MIT
└── README.md

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome — new travel skills (transit, currency, visa/entry rules) in the same "one official API, one deterministic call" spirit are especially appreciated.

License

[MIT](LICENSE) © 2026 Shlomi Shemesh

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Open-source travel skills for the Nous Research Hermes Agent — real-time Google Places search, Google Weather, and aviationstack live flight tracking for AI agents and LLM tool use.

Source & license

This open-source MCP server is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: shlomsh
• Source: shlomsh/hermes-travel-skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.