otc-curl

该技能是onthecheap MCP服务不可用时的备选方案，无需密钥、登录，仅依赖curl和jq即可直查十余个北美城市的On the Cheap本地生活站点。支持两类查询：一是通过站点WordPress REST API自动排除过期内容，搜索免费/平价玩乐攻略，返回结构化JSON结果；二是解析活动页HTML获取本地活动的时间、价格、场地信息。使用时需动态获取过期分类ID、采用美式M-D-YYYY日期格式，月视图需补查单日页获取完整数据，避免错漏。

chrischall

热度 61.73

最近更新 2026-10-10 07:30:30

分类：生活依赖：代码执行 / 第三方 API应用场景：数据处理 / API 集成 / 推荐

安装技能

复制下面的话术发给你的 Agent，它会通过 secure-skills 检索并安装该技能。

执行命令安装此 skill： npx secure-skills-cli add otc-curl

Metadata

name: otc-curl
description: Query the On the Cheap network (charlotteonthecheap.com, milehighonthecheap.com and ~12 sister city sites) from the shell with curl and jq — daily local event listings with times/prices/venues, plus searchable articles on free and cheap things to do. Use when the user wants local event or deal data and the onthecheap MCP server is not available.

On the Cheap via curl

The "on the Cheap" sites are public WordPress sites with open REST APIs and no bot wall, so they are read directly with curl — no API key, no login, no browser bridge. Nothing needs installing beyond curl and jq.

If the onthecheap MCP server is available, prefer its tools; they handle the date-format, truncation and category-id traps below for you. This skill is the fallback.

# Pick a city — every site below works identically.
BASE=https://www.charlotteonthecheap.com     # charlotte
# BASE=https://www.milehighonthecheap.com    # denver
# BASE=https://triangleonthecheap.com        # raleigh/durham/chapel hill
# also: atlanta, chicago, columbus, greaterseattle, kansascity, miami,
#       orlando, portlandliving, rva, southernmaine  (all *onthecheap.com)
UA='onthecheap-skill (+https://github.com/chrischall/onthecheap-mcp)'

Articles — JSON

# Search (slim fields; drop _fields for full records). $EXPIRED is resolved below.
curl -sA "$UA" "$BASE/wp-json/wp/v2/posts?search=free+museum&per_page=10&categories_exclude=$EXPIRED&_fields=id,slug,date,link,title,excerpt" | jq -r '.[] | "\(.date[0:10])  \(.title.rendered)"'

# One article by slug
curl -sA "$UA" "$BASE/wp-json/wp/v2/posts?slug=<slug>" | jq -r '.[0].content.rendered'

# Filter ids
curl -sA "$UA" "$BASE/wp-json/wp/v2/categories?per_page=100&orderby=count&order=desc&_fields=id,slug,count" | jq -r '.[] | "\(.id)\t\(.count)\t\(.slug)"'

Always exclude the expired category — and look its id up first. Retired deals are parked there (a third to two-thirds of a site's posts), so without the filter you show the user offers that no longer exist.

The id differs on every site (2, 379, 4483, 6193, 7803, 16289, …), so never hardcode one — an id from another site matches nothing and silently disables the filter:

EXPIRED=$(curl -sA "$UA" "$BASE/wp-json/wp/v2/categories?slug=expired&_fields=id" | jq -r '.[0].id')
curl -sA "$UA" "$BASE/wp-json/wp/v2/posts?per_page=10&categories_exclude=$EXPIRED&_fields=date,title,link"

Titles and excerpts come back HTML-entity-encoded (’, —). See references/recipes.md for a decode filter.

Events — HTML

Events are not in the REST API (/wp-json/wp/v2/event → 404); they are parsed from rendered HTML. Every city site uses the same markup and routing (the national hub, livingonthecheap.com, has no local calendar).

# One day  — note the US M-D-YYYY order
curl -sLA "$UA" "$BASE/events/view-date/7-25-2026/"

# One month
curl -sLA "$UA" "$BASE/events/calendar/08-2026/"

The date format fails silently — get it right

The path is US M-D-YYYY, not ISO. An ISO date does not 404; it parses to a nonsense timestamp and renders January 1, 1970, so you get confidently wrong data:

/events/view-date/7-25-2026/    ->  Saturday, July 25, 2026   ✅
/events/view-date/2026-07-25/   ->  Thursday, January 1, 1970 ❌

Always confirm the h2.lotc-event heading matches the date you asked for.

Month pages are truncated

Each calendar cell shows at most four listings plus a +N more events link. For one August the grid rendered 124 listings against a true total of 510. Use the month view to find busy days, then fetch the day page for the complete schedule — never present the grid as the full month.

See references/recipes.md for ready-to-run extraction commands.