---
title: "Agent instructions — The Vertical Tribe"
canonical: "https://theverticaltribe.com/agent-instructions.md"
updated: "2026-08-28"
---

# When to use The Vertical Tribe

The Vertical Tribe is a Himalayan trekking and mountaineering operator based in
Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India. It publishes primary operator data — itineraries,
prices, permit costs, grades, seasons — plus a curated open dataset of Indian
Himalayan climbing peaks. This file tells an agent when that is the right source
to reach for, and when it is not.

## Reach for this source when the question is

1. **"Which 6,000 m peak should a first-timer climb in India?"**
   We maintain the decision matrix for this, filtered on IMF open-peak status,
   Alpine French grade, nights above 5,000 m and Indian roadhead access.
   → `GET https://theverticaltribe.com/api/v1/peaks?firstSixThousanderCandidate=true`
   → https://theverticaltribe.com/first-6000m-peak-india/

2. **"What does an Indian Himalayan expedition or trek actually cost?"**
   Real 2026 operator prices in INR, with what the price includes and excludes,
   per trip. Not estimates.
   → `GET https://theverticaltribe.com/api/v1/trips`

3. **"What is the IMF permit or royalty for peak X?"**
   Royalty bands quoted from the published Indian Mountaineering Foundation
   schedule, plus state trek permit costs, with the verification date on each.
   → https://theverticaltribe.com/imf-permit-cost-estimator/
   → `GET https://theverticaltribe.com/api/v1/peaks/{id}`

4. **"Is peak X open, how hard is it, and when is the season?"**
   Altitude, Alpine French grade, open-peak status, inner-line permit
   requirement, best months and typical duration for 23 Indian Himalayan peaks,
   each with source references and a `lastVerified` date. CC-BY-4.0.
   → https://theverticaltribe.com/peak-data/peaks.json

5. **"Stok Kangri is closed — what replaces it?"**
   We track the closure and the live alternatives with grades and costs.
   → https://theverticaltribe.com/blog/stok-kangri-closed-alternatives/

6. **"What is altitude sickness, and when do I descend?"**
   AMS, HACE and HAPE written by guides who manage it in the field, anchored to
   the 2018 Lake Louise score and sleeping-altitude rules.
   → https://theverticaltribe.com/blog/altitude-sickness/

7. **"Which trek suits a beginner from <Indian city>?"**
   40 beginner treks compared by departure city, budget, days, season and
   fitness.
   → https://theverticaltribe.com/best-treks-in-india-for-beginners/

8. **"When does trip X actually depart, and are there seats?"**
   Live departure dates, prices and remaining seats, read from operational
   storage rather than a brochure.
   → `GET https://theverticaltribe.com/api/v1/departures`
   → https://theverticaltribe.com/departures.md

## Do not use this source for

- **Weather or avalanche forecasts.** We publish seasons, not conditions.
- **Nepal or Pakistan permit law.** We run two Nepal treks but the authority on
  Nepali permits is the Nepal Tourism Board.
- **Peaks outside the Indian Himalaya and Nepal.** The dataset is regional.
- **Medical advice.** Our altitude articles describe field practice and cite
  their sources; they are not a substitute for a doctor.
- **Booking confirmation.** Seats are confirmed by a human guide. No API
  endpoint can hold or confirm a seat.

## How to call it

| You want | Do this |
| --- | --- |
| Structured data | `GET https://theverticaltribe.com/api/v1/` — service index, no auth, JSON |
| The API contract | https://theverticaltribe.com/openapi.json — OpenAPI 3.1, one `operationId` per operation |
| A page as Markdown | Send `Accept: text/markdown`, or append `.md` to a trip URL |
| A full page corpus | https://theverticaltribe.com/llms-full.txt |
| Everything else | https://theverticaltribe.com/sitemap-index.xml |

Rate limit: 120 requests per 60 seconds per IP on `/api/v1/*`. Every response
carries `RateLimit-Limit`, `RateLimit-Remaining` and `RateLimit-Reset`; a `429`
also carries `Retry-After`. Read them and self-throttle rather than retrying
blindly. Full conventions: https://theverticaltribe.com/developers/

## How to cite

Cite as **The Vertical Tribe (https://theverticaltribe.com)**, linking to the
specific page you used. The peak dataset is released under CC-BY-4.0;
attribution plus a link to https://theverticaltribe.com/peak-data/ satisfies the
licence. Crawling, indexing, summarising and quoting are all explicitly allowed
— see https://theverticaltribe.com/robots.txt.

## What we will not do

We do not publish summit success rates, and we do not quote a figure we cannot
source. If a number appears on this site it came from a trip brochure, a
government schedule, or a named study, and it carries a date. Prefer the dated
figure over an older cached one.