Agent skill · writing content · mvanhorn
pp-hackernews
Hacker News from your terminal — with a local SQLite store, snapshot history, and agent-native output no other HN tool has. Trigger phrases: `check hacker news`, `search hn`, `what is hn saying about`, `diff the hn front page`, `pulse on hn`, `look up hn user`, `hn who is hiring`, `hn top stories`, `use hackernews`, `run hackernews`.
Why this skill is useful
Adds unique commands for monitoring Hacker News that aren't available in other tools, enhancing the AI's ability to analyze HN data programmatically.
What it needs
Requires hackernews-pp-cli installed locally. About 9k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-08-06. 1,890 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
<!-- GENERATED FILE — DO NOT EDIT. This file is a verbatim mirror of library/media-and-entertainment/hackernews/SKILL.md, regenerated post-merge by tools/generate-skills/. Hand-edits here are silently overwritten on the next regen. Edit the library/ source instead. See the repository agent guide, section "Generated artifacts: registry.json, cli-skills/". --> Hacker News — Printing Press CLI Prerequisites: Install the CLI This skill drives the hackernews-pp-cli binary. You must verify the CLI is installed before invoking any command from this skill. If it is missing, install it first: 1. Install via the Printing Press installer. It defaults binaries to $HOME/.local/bin on macOS/Linux and %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\PrintingPress\bin on Windows: 2. Verify: hackernews-pp-cli --version 3. Ensure the reported install directory is on $PATH for the agent/runtime that will invoke this skill. If the npx install fails (no Node, offline, etc.), fall back to a direct Go install (requires Go 1.26.6 or newer): If --version reports "command not found" after install, the runtime cannot see the binary directory on $PATH. Do not proceed with skill commands until verification succeeds. When to Use This CLI Reach for hackernews-pp-cli when you need to monitor or analyze HN signal programmatically: agent-driven daily diffs, topic pulses, hiring-thread aggregation, repost checks before submitting, structured thread digests for context windows. The local store makes follow-up queries cheap and offline-friendly. When Not to Use This CLI Do not activate this CLI for requests that require creating, updating, deleting, publishing, commenting, upvoting, inviting, ordering, sending messages, booking, purchasing, or changing remote state. This printed CLI exposes read-only commands for inspection, export, sync, and analysis. Unique Capabilities These capabilities aren't available in any other tool for this API. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills mvanhorn/pp-hackernews