Agent skill · research science · himself65
yc-reader
Look up Y Combinator companies and batches from the public yc-oss API, a static JSON dataset refreshed daily: company profiles, batch rosters (e.g. W25, S24), companies by industry or tag, top companies, who is hiring, founder-diversity lists, and overall YC stats. Use this skill whenever the user asks about YC-backed startups, a YC batch, YC companies in a sector or tag or that are hiring, the Y Combinator portfolio, or startup and venture research that draws on YC data. Read-only.
Why this skill is useful
Provides specific API endpoints and data structures for accessing Y Combinator startup information that the AI wouldn't reliably generate on its own.
What it needs
Requires curl, jq installed locally. About 4k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-08-05. 3,127 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
Y Combinator Reader (Read-Only) If your host has not already executed the shell probes below (for example, in Codex), run the commands inside the ! wrappers with its shell tool before choosing a setup path. Use the actual output; if shell access is unavailable, report that limitation. Fetches Y Combinator company data from the yc-oss/api, an unofficial open-source API that indexes all publicly launched YC companies. The data is sourced from YC's Algolia search index and updated daily via GitHub Actions. This is a read-only data source. It provides company profiles, batch listings, industry/tag breakdowns, hiring status, and diversity data. No write operations exist — the API serves static JSON files. No authentication required. The API is public and free. Just use curl to fetch JSON endpoints. --- Step 1: Verify Prerequisites This skill only needs curl (to fetch data) and jq (to parse/filter JSON). Both are pre-installed on most systems. If JQMISSING, install it: If jq is unavailable, you can still fetch raw JSON with curl and parse it inline with Python or other tools — but jq makes filtering much easier. --- Step 2: Identify What the User Needs Match the user's request to the appropriate endpoint. See references/apireference.md for full details. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills himself65/yc-reader