Create skill for reading and filtering Hacker News front page

t-342·WorkTask·
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·Biz/Skills
Created1 month ago·Updated1 month ago

Description

Edit

Create a new skill file Biz/Skills/ReadHackerNews.md that enables reading and filtering the Hacker News front page.

API Reference

The HN Firebase API provides these key endpoints:

  • https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json - Returns array of top story IDs (up to 500)
  • https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/newstories.json - Returns array of new story IDs
  • https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/beststories.json - Returns array of best story IDs
  • https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/{id}.json - Returns story/comment details

Story item format:

{
  "by": "author_username",
  "descendants": 42,  // total comment count
  "id": 12345,
  "kids": [123, 456],  // child comment IDs
  "score": 150,
  "time": 1234567890,  // unix timestamp
  "title": "Story title",
  "type": "story",
  "url": "https://example.com"  // may be missing for Ask HN posts
}

Skill Requirements

The skill should: 1. Fetch story IDs from one of the list endpoints (default: topstories) 2. Fetch details for the first N stories (configurable, default: 30) 3. Support filtering by:

  • Minimum score (e.g., only show stories with 50+ points)
  • Minimum comment count (e.g., only show stories with 10+ comments)
  • Keywords in title (case-insensitive search)
  • Story type (story, ask, show, job, poll)

4. Display results with:

  • Title
  • URL (or "Ask HN" if no URL)
  • Score
  • Comment count
  • Author
  • Age (convert unix timestamp to relative time like "2 hours ago")
  • Link to HN discussion (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id={id})

5. Handle errors gracefully (network issues, missing fields, etc.)

Output Format

The skill should format results as a readable list, like:

Top 20 stories from Hacker News:

1. [150 pts, 42 comments] Standard Ebooks: Public Domain Day 2026 in Literature
   URL: https://standardebooks.org/blog/public-domain-day-2026
   By: WithinReason | 2 hours ago
   Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46462702

2. [120 pts, 35 comments] Ask HN: What are you working on?
   By: username | 3 hours ago
   Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46462719

Integration

Once created, this skill can be used standalone or combined with the existing ParseHackerNews skill to deep-read interesting posts.

Files to Create

  • Biz/Skills/ReadHackerNews.md - The skill documentation with instructions and examples

Timeline (4)

🔄[human]Open → InProgress1 month ago
💬[human]1 month ago

Added Biz/Skills/ReadHackerNews.md with HN front-page fetch, filtering examples, formatting, error handling, and integration notes.

🔄[human]InProgress → Done1 month ago