FRED Macro Data

This skill fetches US economic data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve's FRED database. It covers major macroeconomic indicators including inflation (CPI, PCE, PPI), real output (GDP), employment (unemployment, nonfarm payroll), interest rates (Fed funds, Treasury yields), money supply (M1, M2), currency strength (DXY), market volatility (VIX), commodities (oil, gold), and consumer activity (sentiment, housing starts, retail sales). The skill automatically resolves user queries to the correct FRED series ID and returns time-series observations with metadata including units, frequency, and last update date.

What it does

• Translates natural-language queries into FRED series IDs using a curated alias map or full-text search
• Fetches historical observations for any FRED series with flexible date ranges and ordering
• Returns data with complete metadata: series title, units, frequency, seasonal adjustment status, and last update timestamp
• Supports common economic indicators: CPI, core CPI, PCE, PPI, GDP, unemployment (U-3, U-6, nonfarm), Fed funds rate, Treasury yields (2Y, 10Y), yield curve spreads, M2, DXY, VIX, breakeven inflation expectations, and commodity prices
• Caches series metadata (24-hour TTL) and observations (1-hour TTL) for performance; bypasses cache with --fresh flag
• Handles weekend and holiday gaps in daily series by normalizing missing values

How to use it

Describe the economic data you want—such as "latest CPI," "10-year Treasury yield," or "unemployment rate"—and the skill maps your phrasing to the underlying FRED series ID. It then fetches the requested observations and returns them as JSON with historical values, dates, and series metadata. If your phrase isn't in the built-in alias map, the skill searches FRED's catalog automatically. You can specify a date range, limit the number of observations, or request data in ascending order; by default it returns the most recent 60 observations in descending order.