Adapted from the DGF Agent Basics series — consumer-first guides for working with a personal AI agent. Pick only what you need.
> Pick only what you need. This skill is individual. This is one person's thoughts, offered as a pre-configured help, not a must. Take only the value you need from it, prune it to what fits you, and leave the rest. You do not have to use what the author thinks, and you do not have to take any other skill with it.
Summary: Find and compare flights, with a clean sweep across search sites and airline direct last and always, compared by delivered total. Hands you a booking route to review and pay yourself. Optional — pick it only if you need it.
Use this skill when the user wants to find and compare flights. It covers flights only. If the user asks for something outside flights, handle that as a separate task, without assuming another skill exists.
This skill stands alone. An agent that knows nothing else can follow it from the startup sequence below, then the flights method. This skill works on its own, with no other skill needed, and no knowledge of any other skill assumed.
Startup and how to use
Start by getting your own personal agent. Get your own personal agent and set it up. Bring your own accounts and logins. Use nothing that belongs to anyone else.
Tell your agent what you care about in plain words. Name your business, your work, your family, your hobbies, or any topic you want it to follow. Talking is the setup. You do not have to set up a system first.
Ask for the plan first, before any work runs. Say the task, then ask for the exact steps it will take, what it needs from you, and anything it cannot do. Wait for you to approve or correct the plan. Review the plan like a checklist and fix a wrong step or add a missing step before work starts.
Check that your agent understood you, before it runs. Ask it to show back what it thinks you mean and what output it will give you. Correct its repeat back right there when it does not match what you pictured.
Work in small single steps. Count the steps first. Give one step, check it, then give the next step. A ten step run is a huge run for an agent, so break it down and keep each step to exactly one thing.
Show it once, then save it by name. This is how you create a new task or a new skill. Take over the browser and do the task once yourself while your agent pauses. You drive alone and your agent does not watch your clicks. There is no record button to press. After you hand control back, tell your agent the steps in chat and tell it to save them by name, such as save this as Fun Things. Later, say pull up Fun Things and it picks up where you left off.
Correct it in small plain words when it does it wrong. Do not start over. Say what to change and say to remember that correction. That preference sticks and it gets better for you specifically over time.
Let it keep learning your interests every day. Your Feed looks like a newspaper with articles and topics related to what you told it you care about, updated daily. Your Ideas look like a lightbulb with suggestions for things you might like. It is not mind reading. It learns from what you actually talk about.
Use easy first and deep only when you want it. Never require a deep setup to use a basic task. Keep the wording in plain benefits and do not lead with virtual machine or VM. Say it has its own browser and workspace built in, you do not have to set anything up, it keeps your logins safe, and it saves and remembers your stuff.
Before any search
Read the request and list every fact that decides whether a result is correct. Do not search until those facts are known or the user has said to search without them.
Ask the user for the missing deciding facts in one plain message. Ask at most three short questions at a time.
Never ask for a password or a card number in chat. Tell the user to load logins through the secure sign-in your agent shows them. If a login was not loaded securely, search public prices only and do not look inside that account.
Never spend the user's money. Finding a flight and showing a total are not a purchase. The user reviews and pays themselves.
Travel flights
Collect the trip facts first. Ask for origin, destination, nearby airports that are acceptable, passenger count, bag count, nonstop or stops, acceptable layover length, and times of day that work.
Ask about dates and flexibility in plain words. Ask what dates they must fly, how many days they can shift either way, how much saving would justify a shift or a worse time, and whether they need a ticket they can change or cancel.
Treat basic economy and a changeable ticket as different products. State the trade in one sentence when you present options, such as the cheaper ticket cannot be changed and lands at midnight while the dearer ticket can be changed.
Search every source for the same trip before deciding. Use a full flight search through your agent, Google Flights for the price by day calendar, aggregators such as Priceline, Expedia, Kayak, Skyscanner, Hopper, and CheapOair, and the airline site direct for the final price, bag fees, and change rules.
Check the airline site direct last and always. Some airlines do not appear on aggregators, so skipping the airline site skips a whole carrier. Check the airline sale and promo pages as well as its search box.
Ask what memberships, subscriptions, and credit cards the user already holds. Ask what points they already hold. Compare cash, points, and cash and earn for the same flight. Treat points as a saving only when the points price beats the cash price for that same flight.
Test a promo code in the basket before counting it. A headline code counts only when it works at checkout.
Compare the delivered total for the top two or three options. Include fare, bag fees, seat fees, change and cancel fees, travel time, stops, and whether the trip is one ticket or split tickets.
Warn the user before presenting split tickets. A delay on the first ticket is not the second airline's problem.
Present the decision as a trade, not as a pick made for the user. If the price is not right, track it on Google Flights, rerun the sweep on the flexible dates, and state a plain stop waiting date.
Categories that enhance flights
Fare types: basic economy, main cabin, premium economy, business, and first are different products, even on the same flight. State change rules, bag allowance, seat choice, and boarding for each fare, not just the price.
Baggage: carry on, checked, overweight, and oversize bags have different fees and limits by airline. Check bag count, weight, and size against the airline's rules before presenting a total, and include bag fees in the delivered total.
Seats: standard, extra legroom, exit row, and preferred seats have different prices and rules. Ask whether seat choice matters, and include seat fees when the user wants a specific seat.
Loyalty and alliances: airline loyalty, alliance partners, and credit card travel partners can change the price, the bag allowance, and the lounge access. Check the user's programs, and compare the same flight booked direct, through a partner, and with points, before deciding.
Delays, cancellations, and protection: check cancellation terms, change fees, weather and delay policies, and whether travel insurance would help for that trip. A cheap non refundable ticket on a tight connection is a different risk from a changeable ticket with a long layover.
Airport and transport: check airport choice, terminal, ground transport cost, and travel time to the final destination. A cheaper flight into a far airport can cost more overall, once transport is added.
Traveller categories: adults, children with exact ages, infants on laps, unaccompanied minors, passengers with accessibility needs, and passengers travelling with pets or service animals each have different rules, fees, and documents. Ask which categories apply, and check the airline's rules for each, before presenting a total.
Group and family travel: check whether the party must sit together, whether family seating is free, and whether a group rate or a room block style fare applies. A per person price that splits a family across the cabin is not the same product as a seated together price.
Travel insurance and extras: check what insurance covers, what it excludes, and whether the user already has cover through a card or a policy. Present insurance as an option with its terms, never as a default added cost.
Timing and seasonality: check peak days, holidays, and seasonal schedules that change price and availability. A midweek flight, a shoulder season date, or a flex search a few days either side can change the total, and that trade should be shown plainly.
Hand over the deliverable: cart set, user just pays
At the end, hand the user a finished booking route, not just a summary. The user should be able to go from your message to paying, with no searching left to do.
Hand it over in one of two ways, whichever fits the seller. First, through the your agent browser: prepare the browser task with the chosen flight, dates, passengers, bags, and fare selected, cart or booking page loaded, and hand control to the user in browser takeover, so they review and pay themselves. Second, with the exact URL: give the exact booking or checkout link for the chosen flight, verified to open to that flight, fare, dates, and passengers, not a generic search page.
Before handing it over, check the cart or booking page against the decisions made. Check flight, dates, times, passengers, bags, seats, fare type, cancellation terms, and delivered total, line by line. If anything differs from what the user decided, fix it before handing it over, and say what changed.
State plainly what is set and what is not set. State when the cart is set and ready to pay, when a link is a search result that still needs the user to pick a fare, and when a seller has no cart link and the user must add the flight themselves, with exact steps. Never claim a cart is set when it is not.
Your agent never pays. The user reviews the booking page, enters payment themselves, and places the order themselves. Handing over a ready cart is not placing an order.
Diverse, not concrete: let the user prune
Do not make this skill concrete, narrow, or one size fits all. Present a diverse set of options first, across price, style, risk, format, and approach, so different people can see themselves in it.
Let the user prune. Ask what to cut, what to keep, and what to change, and then narrow to what they kept. Pruning is the user's job, not your agent's guess. Do not prune for them before they have seen the options.
Do not lock a single choice early. Offer at least two or three meaningfully different options at each decision point, with the trade for each, unless the user already locked that choice themselves.
Keep options that do not fit one person, because they may fit another person using the same skill. A skill that only works for one kind of person is too concrete to reuse.
When the user prunes, save the pruned version by name when they want to repeat it, so their version starts from what they kept, not from the full diverse set again.
Present the result
Lead with the recommendation or the trade, in plain words. Keep the reply short and name only the decisive difference between the top choices.
State every price as a delivered total when a total decides the choice. Include taxes and fees when they are known, and say when a fee is unknown instead of guessing it.
State what you could not verify. State when a price is stale, a store was blocked, a membership was not loaded, or a substitution is provisional.
Stop after a denial. Do not re-pitch a rejected option in new words.
Available connectors
A flight search connector, if your agent has one, for searching flights from many airlines.
Use your agent's connector and skill search, if it has one, to find other connectors and related skills.
If nothing here fits, look on the web for a maintained API or MCP server and set it up with your agent's custom connector setup, if it has one, or build a custom connector.
Websites
[Google Flights](https://www.google.com/travel/flights) for the price by day calendar and price tracking. Carry the trip facts and flexible dates into the search and verify the final price on the airline site.
[Priceline](https://www.priceline.com/) for aggregator flight and travel prices. Verify the final price, bag fees, and change rules on the airline site.
Alternatives for better results
Offer flexible dates, a nearby airport, or a price watch when the user can wait for a better price, with a plain stop waiting date.