Every Belgian rail lookup the existing tools offer, plus transfer-risk, delay history and accessibility data that none of them have.
iRail exposes live NMBS/SNCB departures, journey planning and disruptions for free with no API key. This CLI adds what every other client throws away: it records observations locally so punctuality can answer whether a train is chronically late, joins the open stations dataset so transfer-risk knows the real minimum transfer time at each station, and surfaces station accessibility data the API never returns. The analysis commands emit typed JSON - delays as numbers, cancellations as booleans - while the raw endpoint commands pass iRail's payload through unchanged.
Authentication
No credentials are required: the iRail API is open and unauthenticated, so every command works immediately after install. Two operational limits matter instead of a key. iRail allows 3 requests per second per IP with 5 burst, returning HTTP 429 beyond that, so this CLI ships an adaptive rate limiter. iRail also blocks source IPs that send no User-Agent without prior warning, so every request carries an identifying User-Agent automatically.
Quick Start
# Confirm the binary works and the API is reachable; no credentials needed
irail-pp-cli doctor --dry-run
# Pull the 716-station reference set into local SQLite; board and route are live-only and take no sync
irail-pp-cli sync --resources stations,disruptions
# The core lookup: what is leaving right now, with delay and platform
irail-pp-cli board --station Brussels-Central
# Plan a journey with transfers and per-leg live delay
irail-pp-cli route --from Ghent-Sint-Pieters --to Brussels-Central
# Narrow the national disruption feed to just this journey
irail-pp-cli disruptions route --from Ghent-Sint-Pieters --to Brussels-Central
# Start recording observations so punctuality and changes have history to read
irail-pp-cli observe --station Brussels-Central
Unique Features
These capabilities aren't available in any other tool for this API.
Live data joined with open datasets
-
transfer-risk — Tells you whether the transfers in a journey still hold once today's delays are applied.
Reach for this instead of a plain route lookup whenever a journey has a transfer and delays are already in play.
irail-pp-cli transfer-risk --from Oostende --to Hasselt --agent
-
disruptions route — Filters the national disruption feed down to the stations your journey actually passes through.
Use this when the national list is too noisy to answer whether one specific trip is affected.
irail-pp-cli disruptions route --from Ghent-Sint-Pieters --to Brussels-Central --agent
-
stations facilities — Reports step-free access, elevators, ramps, lockers, bike parking and ticket-desk hours for a station.
Use this for accessibility and amenity questions that the live rail API simply cannot answer.
irail-pp-cli stations facilities --station Ghent-Sint-Pieters --agent
Local state that compounds
-
punctuality — Shows how reliable a train or route has actually been, from delay observations recorded on your machine.
Use this for questions about the past such as chronic lateness; it never calls the API.
irail-pp-cli punctuality --from Ghent-Sint-Pieters --to Brussels-Central --board-type route --agent
-
observe — Records what the board says right now into local SQLite, building the history other commands read.
Run this on a schedule; it is what makes punctuality and changes able to answer anything.
irail-pp-cli observe --station Brussels-Central
-
changes — Reports new delays, cancellations and platform changes since the last time you looked.
Use this for deltas during a commute rather than re-reading a whole board.
irail-pp-cli changes --station Brussels-Central --agent
Time reasoning done properly
-
leave-by — Answers the last train you can take and still arrive before a deadline, accounting for current delays.
Use this when the arrival deadline is fixed and the departure time is the unknown.
irail-pp-cli leave-by --from Leuven --to Brussels-Central --arrive-by 09:00 --agent
Recipes
Next departures, narrowed for an agent
irail-pp-cli board --station Brussels-Central --agent --select vehicle,delay,platform,canceled
A full board is roughly 34 KB of JSON; selecting four fields keeps the response small enough to reason over without burning context.
Will my transfer survive today's delays
irail-pp-cli transfer-risk --from Oostende --to Hasselt --agent
Joins live per-leg delay against each station's official minimum transfer time and flags transfers that no longer hold.
Only the disruptions that affect my commute
irail-pp-cli disruptions route --from Ghent-Sint-Pieters --to Brussels-Central --agent
Filters the national feed, which was 32 entries on a normal day, down to the stations this journey passes through.
Last train that still gets me there by nine
irail-pp-cli leave-by --from Leuven --to Brussels-Central --arrive-by 09:00 --agent
Plans backwards from the deadline and applies current delays plus a safety margin.
Is this station step-free
irail-pp-cli stations facilities --station Ghent-Sint-Pieters --agent
Reads the open facilities dataset for elevators, ramps and wheelchair access, none of which the rail API returns.
Usage
Run irail-pp-cli --help for the full command reference and flag list.
Paths & environment variables
This CLI separates local files into four path kinds:
| Kind | Contents |
|---|
config | User-editable settings such as config.toml and saved profiles |
data | Durable local data such as data.db |
state | Runtime state such as persisted queries, jobs, and teach.log |
cache | Regenerable HTTP/cache files |
Each kind resolves independently. The ladder is:
- Per-kind env var:
IRAIL_CONFIG_DIR, IRAIL_DATA_DIR, IRAIL_STATE_DIR, or IRAIL_CACHE_DIR
--home <dir> for this invocationIRAIL_HOME for a flat relocated root- XDG env vars:
XDG_CONFIG_HOME, XDG_DATA_HOME, XDG_STATE_HOME, XDG_CACHE_HOME
- Platform defaults matching existing installs
For containers and agent sandboxes, prefer a single relocated root:
export IRAIL_HOME=/srv/irail
irail-pp-cli doctor
Under IRAIL_HOME=/srv/irail, the four dirs resolve to /srv/irail/config, /srv/irail/data, /srv/irail/state, and /srv/irail/cache.
MCP servers do not receive CLI flags from the host. Put relocation in the host env block:
{
"mcpServers": {
"irail": {
"command": "irail-pp-mcp",
"env": {
"IRAIL_HOME": "/srv/irail"
}
}
}
}
Precedence matters in fleets: an ambient per-kind variable such as IRAIL_DATA_DIR overrides an explicit --home for that kind. Use IRAIL_HOME or the per-kind variables for durable fleet relocation; treat --home as the weaker per-invocation lever.
Relocation is one-way. Unsetting IRAIL_HOME does not move files back to platform defaults, and doctor cannot find files left under a former root. Move the files manually before unsetting relocation variables.
Existing installs keep working because the platform-default rung matches the legacy layout. Run irail-pp-cli doctor --fail-on warn to check path warnings in automation.
Commands
board
Live departure and arrival boards for a station
irail-pp-cli board - Live departures (or arrivals) at a station, with delay, platform and occupancy
disruptions
Network-wide disruptions and planned engineering works
irail-pp-cli disruptions - Current disruptions and planned works across the whole network
logs
Recent iRail API request log entries
irail-pp-cli logs - Last request log entries. Note: upstream currently returns an empty list; bulk archives live at gtfs.irail.be/logs/
route
Journey planning between two stations, with transfers and live delay
irail-pp-cli route - Plan a journey between two stations, including transfers and per-leg delay
stations
Belgian and cross-border stations served by NMBS/SNCB
irail-pp-cli stations - List every station iRail knows about (716 incl. cross-border)
train
Individual trains: full stop trace and physical composition
irail-pp-cli train composition - Physical make-up of a train: segments, units, and per-carriage facilitiesirail-pp-cli train get - Every stop of one train with live delay. Note: iRail ignores the date parameter
Self-learning loop
This CLI caches per-question discovery so repeat queries skip the walk and structurally similar queries get answered via entity substitution. The loop also self-captures: every invocation is journaled locally, and failed-flag corrections plus fresh teaches surface as candidates on the next recall for confirm/reject judgment. Agents call recall before discovery and fire teach & after answering. See the ## Automatic learning section in SKILL.md for the full protocol.
irail-pp-cli recall <query> - Look up cached resources for a query before running discoveryirail-pp-cli teach - Record a query -> resource mapping (silent on success, safe to background with &)irail-pp-cli learnings list - Inspect taught rowsirail-pp-cli learnings forget <query> - Undo a teachirail-pp-cli learnings candidates - List auto-captured candidates awaiting confirm/rejectirail-pp-cli learnings stats - Local loop metrics: recall hit rate, teach-to-reuse, playbook resolution, candidate countsirail-pp-cli teach-pattern - Install a query/resource template up frontirail-pp-cli teach-lookup - Add an entity mapping (e.g. country code, team alias) for pattern substitution
Pass --no-learn or set IRAIL_NO_LEARN=true to disable the loop for deterministic flows.
The local store's schema version stamp is one-way: once this version of irail-pp-cli opens the database, older binaries refuse it with a version error — upgrade the binary rather than downgrading.
Output Formats
# Human-readable table (default in terminal, JSON when piped)
irail-pp-cli board --station Ghent-Sint-Pieters
# JSON for scripting and agents
irail-pp-cli board --station Ghent-Sint-Pieters --json
# Filter to specific fields
irail-pp-cli board --station Ghent-Sint-Pieters --json --select id,name,status
# Dry run — show the request without sending
irail-pp-cli board --station Ghent-Sint-Pieters --dry-run
# Agent mode — JSON + compact + no prompts in one flag
irail-pp-cli board --station Ghent-Sint-Pieters --agent
Agent Usage
This CLI is designed for AI agent consumption:
- Non-interactive - never prompts, every input is a flag
- Pipeable -
--json output to stdout, errors to stderr
- Filterable -
--select id,name returns only fields you need
- Previewable -
--dry-run shows the request without sending
- Read-only by default - this CLI does not create, update, delete, publish, send, or mutate remote resources
- Offline-friendly - sync/search commands can use the local SQLite store when available
- Agent-safe by default - no colors or formatting unless
--human-friendly is set
Exit codes: 0 success, 2 usage error, 3 not found, 5 API error, 7 rate limited, 10 config error.
Health Check
irail-pp-cli doctor
Verifies configuration and connectivity to the API.
Configuration
Run irail-pp-cli doctor to see the resolved config, data, state, and cache directories. The platform-default config path is ~/.config/irail-pp-cli/config.toml; --home, IRAIL_HOME, and per-kind env vars can relocate it.
Static request headers can be configured under headers; per-command header overrides take precedence.
Troubleshooting
Not found errors (exit code 3)
- Check the resource ID is correct
- Run the
list command to see available items
API-specific
- HTTP 429 Too Many Requests — iRail allows 3 requests/second per IP plus 5 burst. Reduce concurrency or add --limit to narrow the query; the built-in limiter backs off automatically.
- Requests suddenly fail from your network — iRail blocks IPs that send no User-Agent. Do not strip the User-Agent header; if already blocked, contact the iRail team to be unblocked.
- Output is XML instead of JSON — The API defaults to xml. This CLI always sends format=json; if you overrode it, drop --format or set --format json.
- train get returns today even though you passed a date — Upstream ignores the date parameter on the vehicle endpoint. Use board list with --date to inspect another day.
- HTTP 500 on a date far in the past or future — iRail only holds a window around the current date. Query a date close to today.
- punctuality or changes returns nothing — Both read local observations. Run irail-pp-cli observe at least twice before expecting results. Both also read one --board-type at a time (default departure), because departure, arrival and route captures are separate histories and are never mixed; history recorded by observe with --from and --to is route history, so read it back with --board-type route.
- A station name is not recognised — Run irail-pp-cli stations search with part of the name; it matches Dutch, French, German and English names plus telegraph codes such as FBMZ.
- delay or canceled compares wrong in jq, e.g. .delay > 300 is always false — The raw endpoint commands (board, route, stations, disruptions, train) return iRail's payload verbatim, and iRail encodes every scalar as a string. Cast with (.delay|tonumber), or use the analysis commands (transfer-risk, punctuality, leave-by, changes, observe) which emit typed numbers and booleans.
Sources & Inspiration
This CLI was built by studying these projects and resources:
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