Track the International Space Station live with keyless curl — where it is right now, what it's over, and when to look up, with the orbital math translated into human terms. Use when asked where is the ISS right now, is the space station overhead, when can I see the ISS tonight, or track the station for the kids. Produces the live position translated to a place name, the overhead-math explained, the visibility rules of thumb, and the rerunnable command — the library's proof that live data can also just be delightful.
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Use iss-tracker to check whether the ISS is near [location] for a [audience], with an honest horizon and visibility explanation rather than an invented pass time.
Required inputs
[location]
[audience]
User-approved starter prompt based on a pinned source version; check current skill requirements before running. Task evidence ↗
SKILL.md
name: iss-trackerdescription: "Track the International Space Station live with keyless curl — where it is right now, what it's over, and when to look up, with the orbital math translated into human terms. Use when asked where is the ISS right now, is the space station overhead, when can I see the ISS tonight, or track the station for the kids. Produces the live position translated to a place name, the overhead-math explained, the visibility rules of thumb, and the rerunnable command — the library's proof that live data can also just be delightful."
ISS Tracker Skill
Somewhere over your head, sixteen times a day, a football-field-sized laboratory does 27,600 km/h — and a keyless API tells you exactly where it is this second. This skill fetches the position and does the translation that makes it land: raw coordinates become "over the South Pacific, heading northeast toward Chile," and the when-can-I-see-it question gets the honest two-part answer (the rules of thumb that always hold, plus the pointer to precise pass predictions, which need more than an anonymous curl). It's the library's purest fun skill, and it behaves like one — while keeping every number real.
What This Skill Produces
The position, translated — coordinates → the ocean/country/region it's over, with direction of travel
The astronaut answer — how high, how fast, how often it orbits — the numbers people actually retell
The visibility read — the rules for seeing it (and why "right overhead" ≠ "visible"), with the route to precise pass times
The command — exact curl, rerunnable — and delightful to hand to a kid
Required Inputs
Ask for these if not provided:
Nothing, for "where is it" — that's the beauty; fetch and answer
A location, for "is it near me / when can I see it" — city or lat/lon, for the distance math and the visibility read
The audience — a curious adult and a seven-year-old deserve different sentences; this skill calibrates joyfully either way
Framework: The Fetch and the Translation
The call:curl -s "http://api.open-notify.org/iss-now.json" → iss_position.latitude/longitude + timestamp. A second fetch ~30 seconds later gives direction of travel from the delta — worth doing; "heading northeast" is half the story's life. (wheretheiss.at's richer API — altitude, velocity per call — is the fallback/enrichment when reachable.)
Translate coordinates or say why not: the lat/lon maps to a named place (ocean names count — it's over water ~70% of the time, which is itself a fun fact to deliver); the translation is the product, the raw numbers are the receipt.
The stable facts carry the wonder: ~420 km up · ~27,600 km/h · one orbit every ~92 minutes · 16 sunrises a day for the crew — stated from knowledge, labeled as the stable facts they are (the position is fetched; the altitude class barely changes).
Visibility honesty: seeing it requires (a) the station over-ish your horizon, (b) your sky dark, (c) the station still sunlit — which is why passes cluster after dusk and before dawn. Overhead at 2pm = invisible; overhead at 2am = usually invisible (station's in shadow too). The rules of thumb get taught; precise pass predictions need orbital propagation — point to the standard spotting services by type rather than faking a timetable.
Distance math when a location is given: great-circle distance from user to the ground track, honestly framed ("passing 1,200 km south of you — below your horizon this orbit") — the near-miss answer is still a good answer when it's true.
Output Format
ISS Right Now — [timestamp]
Over [the place], heading [direction] — next up: [what's ahead on the track].
Altitude ~420 km · speed ~27,600 km/h · orbit every ~92 minutes (the crew sees 16 sunrises a day)
[Location given: "[N] km from you — [above/below] your horizon" · the visibility read: tonight's rules of thumb + where precise pass times live]
Source: open-notify.org (position fetched live; orbital constants are stable facts) · rerun: curl -s http://api.open-notify.org/iss-now.json
Quality Checks
The position is translated to a named place, direction included when two fetches allow
Fetched data and stable facts are labeled as what they are
Visibility answers teach the three conditions, never fake a pass time
Location-given answers include the horizon verdict, honest either way
The tone matches the audience — wonder is in-spec here
Anti-Patterns
Do not answer position from memory — it moved 8 km while you read this sentence, which is the point
Do not dump raw coordinates as the answer — the translation is the skill
Do not invent pass times — rules of thumb yes, timetables need real propagation, say so
Do not confuse overhead with visible — the sunlight condition is the teach
Do not flatten the fun — this skill is allowed to be delighted; precision and joy aren't rivals