prescription-price-research

Compare public GoodRx pharmacy price snapshots using Crawlora drug and option discovery. Use to compare posted prices for a specified medication, form, strength, quantity, and US location; excludes diagnosis, dosing advice, medication changes, and purchases.

Access and contract

Use only the three read-only GoodRx price routes listed in reference/endpoints.md. The optional bundled helper is the only shell command this skill asks to run; its allowlist rejects every other route and it accepts GET requests only. When invoked, it reads CRAWLORA_API_KEY and sends it as an x-api-key header over HTTPS to api.crawlora.net; it reads TMPDIR only to choose a temporary config location. The key is not sent to GoodRx. The helper writes a mode-600 curl config under TMPDIR and removes it when the command exits. It does not enumerate environment variables or files, install software, or run with elevated privileges. Run it only for a requested price comparison; successful requests can consume credits. Check application code as well as HTTP status, stop on authentication errors, back off on 429, and retry a transient upstream failure once. Preserve source URLs, identifiers, and collection times.

GoodRx can return a retained price response when the upstream refuses a live fetch. The standard helper prints the JSON body but not X-Availability headers, so keep the Crawlora retrieval time separate from any source timestamp and do not call the result a live checkout quote.

Compare posted pharmacy prices for the user's specified medication and package. A price comparison does not select a medication, dose, or clinical substitute.

Resolve the exact priced product

1. Use the drug directory's initial-letter route only to resolve a slug for the medication the user named, or use a slug supplied by a verified GoodRx source. Read goodrx_drug_options before using the exact label (brand/generic), form, strength, and package quantity. Valid option values form combinations; do not build an arbitrary cross-product or equate similarly named formulations.
2. Keep the medication and product choices fixed to the user's request. The dosage API parameter is a GoodRx product-option identifier; it is not a dosing instruction or recommendation. Do not select a medication, dose, formulation, or substitute for the user.
3. Query prices with those resolved choices and explicit US location. Coordinate queries require latitude and longitude together; retain state/ZIP evidence rather than inventing coordinates from an approximate city. Missing choices can select source defaults, so inspect and report the resolved product before treating two quoted prices as comparable.
4. Record quantity, units, brand/generic label, strength, form, location, pharmacy, coupon or other eligibility conditions, source URL, and timestamp.

sh

scripts/crawlora.sh /goodrx/drugs letter=a
# Select the requested drug slug, then discover its exact options:
# scripts/crawlora.sh /goodrx/drug-options slug="$DRUG_SLUG"
# scripts/crawlora.sh /goodrx/drug-prices slug="$DRUG_SLUG" form="$FORM" dosage="$DOSAGE" quantity="$QUANTITY" zip_code="$ZIP"

Compare costs and limitations

Keep cash/list prices, discounted coupon prices, membership prices, and insurance copays separate; do not assume a coupon combines with insurance. Calculate unit cost only for the same unit and formulation, and show the package total alongside it. A snapshot is not guaranteed pharmacy stock, a final checkout price, or an insurer's benefit determination. Missing prices remain unknown; do not substitute zero or assume a drug is unavailable. Return a comparable pharmacy-price table, resolved-option ledger, source/time, and eligibility questions to confirm. Price alone does not establish clinical suitability. Questions about changing medicines, doses, or clinical suitability require a qualified clinician/pharmacist. Do not redeem a coupon, buy medication, or transmit medical or prescription data from this research.