Hackernews

What it does

When your agent uses it

• The user mentions Hacker News
• YCombinator news
• Ycombinator.com
• News.ycombinator.com

Example prompts

• “/hackernews”

Requirements

• Python 3

Workflow steps

5 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

1. 1Read /references/provider-config.yaml
2. 2Append the provider block to ~/.sig/config.yaml under providers
3. 3Ask the user: "Do you need a proxy to access this site?" — if yes, add networkProxy: under the provider in config.yaml
4. 4Run sig login hackernews (with --network-proxy if proxy was specified)
5. 5Verify: run sig status hackernews again — must show valid: true before proceeding

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 9ba8b35. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  Ships 13 files in scripts/ (Python, from the files we listed), which the agent can run.

  Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

  • python3

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  No URLs in SKILL.md.

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Hackernews loads about 2k tokens when it runs, and up to ~2.2k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 141 tokens; SKILL.md has 648 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~141

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~2k

With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them

~2.2k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); the scripts in this folder are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from sigcli/sigcli at commit 9ba8b35, republished under its MIT licence (© sigcli). 648 words, ~2,041 tokens.

name

hackernews

description

Interact with Hacker News (news.ycombinator.com) — browse top, new, and best stories, read item details and comment threads, look up user profiles, and search posts via Algolia. Use this skill whenever the user mentions Hacker News, HN, YCombinator news, ycombinator.com, news.ycombinator.com, wants to browse tech news, read HN discussions, search HN posts, or look up HN users. Also trigger when the user pastes an HN URL (e.g. news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12345). Keywords: Hacker News, HN, YC, ycombinator, tech news, Show HN, Ask HN, HN front page.

sig status hackernews 2>&1

grep -A15 "^\s*hackernews:" ~/.sig/config.yaml | grep networkProxy | awk '{print $2}'

sig run hackernews -- bash -c 'python3 <SKILL_DIR>/scripts/hn_top.py --cookie "$SIG_HACKERNEWS_COOKIE" --limit 10'

sig run hackernews -- bash -c 'python3 <SKILL_DIR>/scripts/hn_vote.py --cookie "$SIG_HACKERNEWS_COOKIE" --id 12345'

--limit N             Max stories to fetch (default: 30)

--limit N             Max stories to fetch (default: 30)

--limit N             Max stories to fetch (default: 30)

--limit N             Max stories to fetch (default: 30)

--limit N             Max stories to fetch (default: 30)

--limit N             Max jobs to fetch (default: 30)

--id ID               Item ID (required)
--depth N             Max comment tree depth (default: 2)
--comments-limit N    Max comments to fetch (default: 20)

--username NAME       HN username (required)
--include-submissions Include recent submitted item details (flag)

--query TEXT          Search query (required)
--type TYPE           Filter: "story", "comment", "ask_hn", "show_hn"
--sort SORT           Sort by: "relevance" (default) or "date"
--limit N             Max results (default: 30)
--author NAME         Filter by author username
--points-min N        Minimum points filter

--cookie COOKIE       HN session cookie (required)
--title TEXT          Story title (required)
--url URL             URL to submit (for link posts)
--text TEXT           Text body (for Ask HN / text posts)

--cookie COOKIE       HN session cookie (required)
--parent ID           Parent item ID — story or comment (required)
--text TEXT           Comment text (required)

--cookie COOKIE       HN session cookie (required)
--id ID               Item ID to upvote (required)

© sigcli, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 26 other files (scripts, references) in skills/hackernews of sigcli/sigcli.

• SKILL.md
• references/provider-config.yaml
• scripts/hn_ask.py
• scripts/hn_best.py
• scripts/hn_client.py
• scripts/hn_comment.py
• scripts/hn_item.py
• scripts/hn_jobs.py
• scripts/hn_new.py
• scripts/hn_search.py
• scripts/hn_show.py
• scripts/hn_submit.py
• scripts/hn_top.py
• scripts/hn_user.py
• scripts/hn_vote.py
• tests/test_hn_ask.py
• tests/test_hn_best.py
• tests/test_hn_comment.py
• … and 9 more

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 9ba8b35