openclaw plugins install goplaces — but you need a Google Cloud API key with Places API enabled before it works.Location awareness is one of those capabilities that seems niche until you actually have it. Then every agent you build wants it. The GoPlaces skill for OpenClaw adds Google Places data to any agent in minutes — and as of early 2025, it's one of the most actively maintained built-in skills in the ecosystem.
What the GoPlaces Skill Actually Does
GoPlaces is a thin, well-structured wrapper around the Google Places API (specifically the Places API New as of 2024). It gives your agent two core capabilities: general place search by keyword or category, and proximity-based nearby search within a radius you define.
When an agent calls GoPlaces, it doesn't just get a list of names. It gets structured data for each result: place name, formatted address, current open/closed status, star rating, price level, phone number, website URL, and the Google place ID. That place ID matters — you can use it later for detailed lookups without burning additional quota on a fresh search.
The skill handles geocoding transparently. You can pass a named location ("Times Square, New York") or raw coordinates. GoPlaces resolves the former to coordinates before making the Places API call, so your agent doesn't need to pre-process location strings.
Installation
One command gets the skill onto your system:
openclaw plugins install goplacesOpenClaw pulls the skill package from ClaWHub, verifies the checksum, and drops the files into your skills directory. After install, confirm it's registered:
openclaw plugins list | grep goplaces
# goplaces v1.3.1 built-in enabledIf you see the skill listed but it shows disabled, you're missing the API key. The skill won't activate until the environment variable is present. We'll fix that next.
Google Places API Key Setup
Getting the key takes about five minutes if you've done it before. Here's the exact path:
- Go to console.cloud.google.com and create or select a project
- Navigate to APIs & Services → Library
- Search for "Places API (New)" and enable it — make sure you enable the New version, not the legacy one
- Go to APIs & Services → Credentials → Create Credentials → API Key
- Restrict the key to the Places API only (under API restrictions)
- Copy the key
Now set it as an environment variable. The skill reads GOOGLE_PLACES_API_KEY at startup:
# Add to your shell profile (.zshrc, .bashrc, etc.)
export GOOGLE_PLACES_API_KEY="AIzaSy..."
# Or pass directly when starting OpenClaw
GOOGLE_PLACES_API_KEY="AIzaSy..." openclaw startSkill.md Configuration
GoPlaces creates a skill.md file in your agent's skills directory after installation. This is where you tune the skill's behavior per agent. The defaults work, but you'll want to customize for serious use.
# skill.md — GoPlaces configuration
skill: goplaces
version: "1.3"
config:
default_radius_meters: 1500 # search radius for /nearby
max_results: 10 # results per query (max 20)
allowed_types: # restrict to specific place types
- restaurant
- cafe
- lodging
- tourist_attraction
language: "en"
region_bias: "us" # bias results toward a country
include_closed: false # exclude currently closed placesThe allowed_types list is the most important tuning lever. Without it, a query for "good place near the airport" might return everything from gas stations to law firms. Lock it down to the types your agent's use case requires.
Slash Commands
GoPlaces adds two slash commands to your agent's command palette.
/places — General Search
Search by keyword, business name, or place type. Returns up to max_results matches ranked by relevance and user rating.
/places coffee shops in downtown Austin
/places "Nobu" New York
/places pharmacies open now near me/nearby — Proximity Search
Search within a radius of a specific location. The radius defaults to your skill.md setting but can be overridden inline.
/nearby restaurants 37.7749,-122.4194
/nearby "Union Square, San Francisco" radius:800 type:cafe
/nearby hotels near JFK airport radius:3000Both commands return a formatted result block your agent can parse and present — including a summary line, the full structured data object, and a Google Maps deep link for each result.
Real-World Use Cases
Personal Assistant Finding Restaurants
The most common GoPlaces use case. An agent with GoPlaces can handle "find me a good ramen spot near my 7pm meeting in Midtown" end-to-end — it uses the meeting location from your calendar skill, calls /nearby with type:restaurant and the meeting's coordinates, filters by rating, and surfaces the top three with links. No manual searching required.
Event Planning Agent
Event coordinators use GoPlaces-enabled agents to scout venues, catering options, and accommodations around a target address. The agent can run multiple /nearby queries in a single turn — venues, parking, hotels — and compile a structured shortlist. Combine this with the Google Calendar skill and you have a capable event planning assistant.
Travel Agent Workflows
Travel-focused agents use GoPlaces to build itineraries. Given a city and travel dates, the agent pulls top-rated attractions, restaurants by neighborhood, and proximity data to cluster stops logically. The place IDs from GoPlaces can seed links to Google Maps itinerary view without additional API calls.
API Quota Considerations
Google Places API pricing is usage-based. Here's what matters for GoPlaces:
| Request Type | Cost Per 1,000 | Free Monthly Credit |
|---|---|---|
| Nearby Search | $32 | ~6,250 requests |
| Text Search | $32 | ~6,250 requests |
| Place Details | $17 | ~11,750 requests |
For personal use, the $200 monthly credit is more than enough — you'd need to run several thousand place searches to exceed it. For production agents serving multiple users, implement caching at the skill level. GoPlaces v1.3 includes an optional TTL cache: set cache_ttl_minutes: 60 in skill.md to avoid duplicate API calls for the same location within an hour.
Common Mistakes and What Goes Wrong
The most frequent failure mode is forgetting to enable the Places API (New) specifically. Google Cloud has both the legacy Places API and the new version. GoPlaces 1.3+ requires the new version. If you enabled the wrong one, you'll see a 403 error with the message "This API project is not authorized."
The second issue: location bias. Without setting region_bias in skill.md, queries like "best pizza" will return globally ranked results that may not be near your user. Always set a region bias that matches your primary user geography.
Third: allowed_types set too broadly. One builder I worked with set allowed_types to every Google place type "just to be safe." The result was agents returning strip clubs and funeral homes when asked to find event venues. Start restrictive and open up as needed.
Finally, watch the default radius. 1,500 meters sounds reasonable but in dense urban areas returns 20 results in a two-block stretch. In suburban areas, 1,500 meters might miss everything. Tune per deployment context.
Frequently Asked Questions
What API does the GoPlaces skill use?
GoPlaces uses the Google Places API (part of Google Maps Platform). You need a billing-enabled Google Cloud project and an API key with Places API access enabled. Without billing enabled, requests fail after the free trial expires.
Is the GoPlaces skill free to use?
The skill itself is free. Google Places API charges apply beyond the free monthly credit ($200 credit covers roughly 10,000 nearby searches). For personal assistant use, most builders stay well within free tier limits.
What slash commands does GoPlaces add to my agent?
GoPlaces adds /places for general location search by keyword or type, and /nearby for radius-based searches around a coordinate or named location. Both commands return structured data including ratings, hours, and contact info.
Can GoPlaces get driving directions?
Not directly — GoPlaces focuses on place discovery and detail retrieval, not routing. For directions, you would need to combine GoPlaces output with a separate Maps Directions API call or link out to Google Maps with the place ID.
How do I restrict which place types my agent searches?
Set the allowed_types array in your skill.md config to limit searches to specific Google place types like restaurant, lodging, or tourist_attraction. This prevents agents from returning irrelevant results and reduces API quota consumption.
Does GoPlaces work offline or without internet?
No. GoPlaces makes live API calls to Google Places on every request. There is no offline mode or local cache by default. Requests fail if the host machine has no internet access or if Google API endpoints are unreachable.
You now know exactly how to install GoPlaces, configure it for your use case, and avoid the three mistakes that trip up most builders on first setup. Location intelligence stops being a gap in your agent stack the moment you run that install command.
The next step: install GoPlaces, set your API key, and run /nearby restaurants [your city center] to confirm the connection. The whole setup takes under ten minutes — and once your agent can find places, you'll wonder how it managed without it.
M. Kim has spent three years building location-aware agents for logistics and travel clients. She's integrated the Google Places API into more than a dozen OpenClaw deployments and maintains a public skill.md template library for GoPlaces configurations across verticals.