Google Shopping Offers - FlashData

Save a product-offer snapshot for a purchasing research pipeline, preserving price labels and merchant fields.

This action calls the google_shopping FlashData API and writes files for subsequent GitHub Actions steps. It does not invoke a language model. Prices are search snapshots; inventory and checkout price are not guaranteed.

Quick start

1. Create a FlashData account, obtain an API Key, and fund the required Credits. API setup and examples.
2. Add FLASHDATA_API_KEY as a repository or environment Actions secret. Do not use a plaintext workflow input for the key.
3. Add this manually triggered workflow and review its query before running it. Pin actions to a reviewed full commit SHA for production; the example uses a version tag for readability.

name: Google Shopping Offers - FlashData
on:
  workflow_dispatch: {}
permissions:
  contents: read
jobs:
  collect:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Save a product-offer snapshot for a purchasing research pipeline,
          preserving price labels and merchant fields.
        id: data
        uses: rocosen/flashdata-google-shopping-action@v0.1.0
        with:
          api-key: ${{ secrets.FLASHDATA_API_KEY }}
          query: USB microphone
          options-json: '{"num":5}'
      - name: Save data for the next pipeline stage
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: google-shopping
          path: ${{ steps.data.outputs.artifact-directory }}
          retention-days: 7

The action is bundled for Node 24; no npm install or Python setup is required in your consuming workflow. Use an up-to-date GitHub runner. No schedule is enabled by this example.

Inputs

Input	Required	Meaning
api-key	Yes	FlashData API Key. Pass secrets.FLASHDATA_API_KEY; requests use paid Credits.
query	Yes	Search topic or autocomplete prefix.
options-json	No	Optional JSON object with only source-specific options listed in the README. Never include credentials here.

Source options

gl (two-letter country), hl (language), location, num and page (integers 1–100), tbs, autocorrect (boolean). Omitted options stay omitted; actual result counts vary. Each page is a separate paid query.

Unknown fields, incorrect types and invalid ranges fail before an API request. The action makes one paid query without automatic pagination or retries.

Outputs

Output	Meaning
artifact-directory	Absolute directory with response.json, records.jsonl and manifest.json.
results-file	Absolute path to the original response JSON (sanitized lifecycle fields for download jobs).
records-file	Absolute path to JSONL records for downstream steps. Empty file for an empty result.
result-count	Number of exported records; not the requested result count.
source	The fixed FlashData source used by this action.

Raw API fields: results[].shopping: title, link, price and available merchant/rating fields; usage.credits. records.jsonl exports the corresponding search result collection. manifest.json records the source, operation, timestamps, exported count and missing-collection warnings. For ordinary queries it also includes the query/options and API-reported usage.

Empty results produce an empty JSONL file and result-count 0. Missing fields stay missing; response.json preserves the original result envelope. The supplied upload-artifact step stores these files for 7 days. Only use queries and datasets appropriate for the repository’s artifact access level; private signed delivery links may be present in download manifests.

Cost and failure handling

The MIT action is free to install. FlashData API calls use paid Credits; GitHub runner/artifact, model (if you add one) and customer storage costs are separate. Current pricing. Extended YouTube Search has a separate rate; media delivery is billed by delivered volume. Do not infer price from sample usage fields.

A timeout, HTTP error or response-processing failure may happen after a paid request was accepted. Check FlashData Jobs before rerunning; the action does not retry POST requests. HTTP 401 means check the Key; 402 means insufficient Credits; 429 means rate/quota limit. Keep any download job ID and resume with a read operation. Do not use workflow reruns as polling. Requests have a 65-second per-request timeout and a 16-MiB response limit.

Development and validation

Run npm ci, npm run check, npm test and npm run build. Offline tests use labeled fixtures and make no production API calls. A local or CI test pass is not proof of a paid live run or Marketplace publication. Commit the bundled dist/index.cjs together with source changes.

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