variflight_skill

Overview

This skill connects an AI assistant to the Variflight HTTP API to query flight, train, and travel data. It provides route and flight-number searches, real-time status, punctuality metrics, price lookups, train-ticket searches, airport weather forecasts, and flight comfort (happiness) indices. The tool is designed for zero-dependency integration and supports multiple configuration methods for API credentials.

How this skill works

The skill sends POST requests to Variflight's /api/v1/mcp/data endpoint with an X-VARIFLIGHT-KEY header and JSON payloads for specific endpoints (flights, flight, trainStanTicket, futureAirportWeather, etc.). It accepts city/airport codes, flight numbers, dates, and other parameters, then parses the standardized JSON response (code, message, data) into structured results the assistant can present. Error codes (401, 400, 500) are surfaced so the caller can handle authentication, validation, or server issues.

When to use it

• Search flights between two airports or cities for a given date.
• Check a specific flight’s real-time status and punctuality record.
• Find available train tickets or search train stations between cities.
• Get short-term airport weather forecasts affecting departures/arrivals.
• Compare flight prices or plan multimodal trips (flight + train).
• Retrieve aircraft location or flight comfort (happiness) metrics for passenger experience insights.

Best practices

• Provide airport IATA codes (PEK, PVG, SHA, CAN, etc.) when available to improve accuracy.
• Store the API key in environment variables or a config file, not in code, to keep credentials secure.
• Handle common HTTP errors explicitly: 401 for invalid keys, 400 for bad requests, 500 for server errors.
• Cache frequent queries (airport weather, static routes) for a short period to reduce API calls and latency.
• Validate dates and time zones before requesting to avoid mismatched results across regions.

Example use cases

• Customer support bot checks a passenger’s flight status and expected arrival time during disruptions.
• Travel planner compares fares and suggests a combined flight+train itinerary for multi-city trips.
• Operations dashboard displays punctuality statistics and happiness index for flights on a specific route.
• Mobile assistant offers airport weather and delay risk when a user asks about an upcoming flight.
• Ticketing chatbot searches train availability between two cities when flights are full.