hubot-pollen

hubot-pollen

Retrieves the latest pollen forecast using Open-Meteo first, with fallback to Pollen.com when Open-Meteo has no usable pollen data.

Installation

In hubot project repo, run:

npm install hubot-pollen --save

Then add hubot-pollen to your external-scripts.json:

[
  "hubot-pollen"
]

Configuration

Set the target location by providing a default search value (ZIP, city, or place text). Defaults to Nashville, TN for demonstration purposes.

Environment Variable	Required?	Description
HUBOT_POLLEN_ZIP	No	Default location query (ZIP, city, or place)
HUBOT_POLLEN_OLLAMA_ENABLED	No	Set to true to register pollen tools with hubot-ollama

Commands

• hubot pollen - Show today's pollen levels for the default location query.
• hubot pollen <zip> - Show today's pollen levels for the given 5-digit ZIP.
• hubot pollen <search> - Show today's pollen levels for a geocoded location query.

Data Source Strategy

1. Query Open-Meteo geocoding with the provided location string.
2. Query Open-Meteo air-quality pollen endpoint by coordinate.
3. If Open-Meteo pollen values are all null (or otherwise unusable), fallback to Pollen.com using a 5-digit ZIP when available.

Open-Meteo pollen values are only available for Europe during pollen season, so fallback is expected for many US locales. Slack responses cite Open-Meteo in the attachment footer when that data source is used.

Sample Interaction

user1>> hubot pollen
hubot>> Nashville, TN Pollen: 8.2 (Medium-High) - Alder, Juniper, Maple

user1>> hubot pollen London
hubot>> London, GB Pollen: Low intensity (1.7 grains/m^3 peak) - Grass 1.7, Birch 0.6

NPM Module

https://www.npmjs.com/package/hubot-pollen

Ollama Integration

This package can expose pollen tools to Ollama for use in LLM-powered conversations through the hubot-ollama package.

Enabling Ollama Tools

To enable this feature, set the following environment variable:

HUBOT_POLLEN_OLLAMA_ENABLED=true

This requires hubot-ollama to be installed in your hubot repository. If hubot-ollama is not available, the tools will not be registered but the package will continue to function normally.

Available Tools

get_pollen_forecast

Retrieves pollen forecast data for a specified location.

Parameters:

• location (string, required): Location to get pollen forecast for. Can be a city name, city/state, city/country, or US ZIP code (for example, "Nashville, TN", "London", "37203").

Returns:

• Source used (open-meteo or pollen.com)
• Location label
• Coordinates when available
• Intensity and peak concentration
• Top pollen types when available

get_pollen_by_coordinates

Retrieves pollen forecast data for specific latitude and longitude coordinates.

Parameters:

• latitude (number, required): Latitude coordinate
• longitude (number, required): Longitude coordinate

Returns:

• Source used (open-meteo)
• Coordinates
• Intensity and peak concentration
• Top pollen types when available

Example Tool Response Shapes

get_pollen_forecast — Open-Meteo result:

{
  "source": "open-meteo",
  "location": "London, GB",
  "coordinates": { "latitude": 51.5, "longitude": -0.1 },
  "intensity": "Low",
  "peak_grains_per_m3": 1.7,
  "pollen_types": [
    { "type": "Grass", "peak": 1.7 },
    { "type": "Birch", "peak": 0.6 }
  ]
}

get_pollen_forecast — Pollen.com fallback result:

{
  "source": "pollen.com",
  "location": "Nashville, TN",
  "zip": "37206",
  "index": 8.2,
  "level": "Medium-High",
  "triggers": ["Alder", "Juniper", "Maple"]
}

get_pollen_by_coordinates result:

{
  "source": "open-meteo",
  "coordinates": { "latitude": 51.5, "longitude": -0.1 },
  "intensity": "Low",
  "peak_grains_per_m3": 1.7,
  "pollen_types": [
    { "type": "Grass", "peak": 1.7 }
  ]
}