Ask an agent built on OpenClaw what 2,400 dollars is in euros and, without a tool, it answers from training data. The number looks right and is months old. We published a skill on ClawHub that fixes that with one install:
openclaw skills install allratestoday
What an OpenClaw skill is
OpenClaw is an open-source agent framework that runs on your own machine and acts through tools such as web_fetch and the shell. A skill is a SKILL.md file: a description that tells the agent when to load it, and a body with the procedure to follow. Skills live on the ClawHub registry, are scanned for safety, and install per agent or globally. There is no server to run, which is the main difference from an MCP server.
Rule zero: never state a rate from memory
The first line of the skill body is the rule everything else depends on. A remembered rate is stale by definition, and in a checkout, an invoice line or a customs declaration that is a financial bug. The skill tells the agent to fetch the rate and quote the date that came back with it. If the fetch fails, the agent says the rate is unknown rather than filling in a plausible constant.
Two kinds of rate, one decision
Most currency mistakes in agent output come from using a market rate where a rule names a publisher. The skill makes the agent decide first:
| The request | What the agent fetches | Key |
|---|---|---|
| Convert an amount, show a price in another currency |
/api/open/latest/{BASE}, the ECB daily table re-based to any currency |
none |
| Invoice, VAT, customs, audit, "the ECB rate", "the HMRC rate" |
/api/open/central-bank/{code}, the named institution's own table |
none, non-commercial |
| Live mid-market, 160+ currencies | /api/v1/rates |
free key |
| A past date or a history series | paid-plan endpoints | paid key |
The ECB table and an institution's table routinely differ by a percent or more. An auditor will ask which publisher a figure came from, so the agent names it: "ECB reference table, 2026-10-29" or "SAMA official reference rate, 2026-10-29".
Reading a central bank table without getting the direction wrong
This is where agents fail quietly. Institutions publish in both directions. SAMA and the Bank of Korea quote home currency per foreign unit; the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and the Bank of England quote foreign units per home unit. The API returns every row as 1 base = value quote with both codes spelled out, and the skill tells the agent to read those fields rather than assume.
Many banks publish several rows for one pair: buy, sell, middle, reference. The skill sets the preference order (reference, then middle, then official, buy/sell mean last) and explains the stale flag, so a table the bank has not refreshed is reported with its real date.
The skill ships a reference file with all 127 institution codes and worked response examples, so the agent does not spend a fetch looking codes up.
Why keyless first
The skill works with nothing configured. The ECB table for any base and the latest table of every institution are open endpoints; the only requirement is a visible attribution link where rates are shown to others. A free key, read from ALLRATESTODAY_API_KEY, adds live mid-market rates. History and dated tables are on paid plans, and the skill tells the agent to say so on a 403 instead of improvising.
Try it
openclaw skills install allratestoday- Ask: "Convert 2,400 USD to EUR and tell me which table you used."
- Ask: "What is HMRC's rate for AED this month?" and check that the answer carries the publication date.
MIT licensed. Source: AllRates-Today/openclaw-skill. Page and FAQ: allratestoday.com/openclaw.
Rates by AllRatesToday. Follow @Allratestoday.
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