Chinese Zodiac Skill

Overview

Supports dates from 1900-2100 with accurate Chinese New Year dates. Also provides the position in the 60-year Sexagenary cycle and personality traits. Look up by date or search for years matching a specific animal.

Live Test Chinese Zodiac Skill Skill →

The tool

Once your client is connected to the VerveKit server, this appears in its tool list as ChineseZodiacSkill. It is read-only and open-world — it fetches and never mutates anything on your side — so most clients call it without asking you to confirm.

Tool call

{
  "name": "ChineseZodiacSkill",
  "arguments": {
    "date": "1990-01-15"
  }
}

You do not name the tool yourself; the model picks it. Asking about 1990-01-15 in the terms this skill covers is enough for it to reach for ChineseZodiacSkill on its own — naming it explicitly also works, and is the way to force the call.

Connecting

One server URL covers every skill in the catalog, including this one. Authorization is OAuth: the client opens a browser once, and there is no key to paste into a config file.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "vervekit": {
      "url": "https://api.vervekit.com/v1/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Per-client setup — Claude, Cursor, VS Code, ChatGPT — is on the MCP setup page.

Arguments

These are the properties on the tool's inputSchema, so a well-behaved client validates them before the call is made. Premium arguments are accepted on every plan but only take effect on plans that include them.

Argument	Type	Description
`date`Required	string	The date in YYYY-MM-DD format (years 1900-2100) date

What the model gets back

The result carries a structuredContent object matching the tool's declared outputSchema, so a client reads fields without parsing prose. status is "ok" and error is null on success; a null field means the value was not available for that input, not that the call failed.

Result

{
  "status": "ok",
  "error": null,
  "data": {
    "date": "1990-01-15",
    "zodiacYear": 1989,
    "animal": "Snake",
    "animalChinese": "蛇",
    "element": "Earth",
    "elementChinese": "土",
    "elementColor": "Yellow/Brown",
    "polarity": "Yin",
    "traits": [
      "Enigmatic",
      "Intelligent",
      "Wise",
      "Decisive"
    ],
    "sexagenaryCyclePosition": 6,
    "fullName": "Earth Snake",
    "chineseNewYear": "1990-01-27"
  }
}

Response fields

Paths are relative to data. Premium fields are absent rather than zeroed on plans that do not include them, so check for presence instead of comparing to 0.

Field	Type	Example	Description
`date`	string	`1990-01-15`	Input date in YYYY-MM-DD format
`zodiacYear`	number	`1989`	Zodiac year based on Chinese lunar calendar
`animal`	string	`Snake`	English name of zodiac animal
`animalChinese`Premium	string	`蛇`	Chinese character representation of zodiac animal
`element`	string	`Earth`	Element associated with zodiac year
`elementChinese`Premium	string	`土`	Chinese character for element association
`elementColor`Premium	string	`Yellow/Brown`	Color representation of the element
`polarity`	string	`Yin`	Yin or Yang polarity classification
`traits`Premium	array	`["Enigmatic","Intelligent","Wise"]`	Personality traits associated with the zodiac animal
`sexagenaryCyclePosition`Premium	number	`6`	Position in the 60-year sexagenary cycle
`fullName`	string	`Earth Snake`	Combined element and animal zodiac name
`chineseNewYear`Premium	string	`1990-01-27`	Date of the Chinese New Year that began the returned zodiac year

Failure modes

Errors come back as tool errors carrying a sentence the model can act on, not a bare status code. Error handling covers the full list.

Status	What it means
`400` / `422`	The arguments did not validate. The message names the offending one.
`401`	The OAuth session is invalid or expired — reconnect the server.
`403`	Blocked by a key restriction or an IP allow-list. Never a bad identity.
`404`	This skill is not part of VerveKit. Check the catalog.
`429`	Out of credits, or a brief rate limit. The message tells them apart.

A call costs 2 credits each time the tool actually runs; a model that reasons about the tool without calling it costs nothing.

Use cases

Astrology Apps: Display accurate Chinese zodiac for birth dates
Birthday Features: Show zodiac details accounting for lunar calendar
Cultural Content: Educational information about Chinese traditions
Personalization: Match users with their zodiac characteristics

Other ways to use Chinese Zodiac Skill

Set up Chinese Zodiac Skill on VerveKit, or reach the same source a different way. Your VerveKit account and credits work on all of them — one key, one balance.

Call it as a REST APIOne HTTPS endpoint and an x-api-key header, with SDKs for Node, Python and .NET.APIVerve →Reference →

Google Sheets or ExcelA =VERVE() formula fills a column — no script, no export, recalculates in place.VerveSheets →Reference →