news-digest
npx machina-cli add skill heurema/herald/news-digest --openclawNews Digest
You have access to a daily curated news digest via the herald plugin.
When to use
- User asks "what's new", "any news", "latest trends", "what happened today"
- User starts a session and a fresh digest is available
- User asks about specific topics that might be in today's digest
How to check
- Look for today's digest:
~/.local/share/herald/data/digests/$(date +%Y-%m-%d).md - If not found, check yesterday's
- Read the digest and present relevant items
Available commands
/news-init— Set up the pipeline/news-digest— Read today's digest/news-run— Manually trigger collection/news-stop— Disable the scheduler
Presenting the digest
When presenting items from the digest, use this 5-section Analysis Guide structure:
- Trends — Which topics are gaining momentum? What's the signal vs. noise?
- Surprises — What's unexpected or counter-intuitive in today's digest?
- Connections — How do items across different topics relate to each other?
- Action Items — What concrete next steps does this suggest?
- Questions — What important questions does this raise that aren't answered here?
Items marked [NEW] appeared for the first time since the last digest — prioritize these in the Trends and Surprises sections.
Topic sections are sorted by relevance score (rank × 0.6 + frequency × 0.3 + recency × 0.1). Higher-scoring sections represent more active, recent activity.
Source
git clone https://github.com/heurema/herald/blob/main/skills/news-digest/SKILL.mdView on GitHub Overview
News Digest provides a daily curated roundup of current events and trends using the Herald plugin. It’s ideal when users ask what’s new, latest trends, or at session start when a fresh digest is available.
How This Skill Works
The agent checks for today’s digest at ~/.local/share/herald/data/digests/$(date +%Y-%m-%d).md, falling back to yesterday’s if needed, then reads and presents relevant items. It presents items using a 5-section Analysis Guide and supports commands like /news-init, /news-digest, /news-run, and /news-stop to manage the digest pipeline.
When to Use It
- User asks 'what's new', 'any news', 'latest trends', or 'what happened today'
- User starts a session and a fresh digest is available
- User asks about specific topics that might be in today's digest
- User wants a digest at session start to brief on current events
- User wants to manually trigger collection or view today's digest via Herald commands
Quick Start
- Step 1: Check for today's digest at ~/.local/share/herald/data/digests/$(date +%Y-%m-%d).md; if missing, check yesterday's
- Step 2: Read the digest and identify items to present using the 5-section Analysis Guide
- Step 3: Present to the user and use available commands (/news-init, /news-digest, /news-run, /news-stop) as needed
Best Practices
- Check for today's digest first; if not found, look for yesterday's digest
- Prioritize items marked [NEW] in Trends and Surprises
- Present items using the 5-section Analysis Guide (Trends, Surprises, Connections, Action Items, Questions)
- Sort topic sections by the given relevance score formula (rank × 0.6 + frequency × 0.3 + recency × 0.1)
- Offer concise summaries and concrete takeaways that users can act on
Example Use Cases
- A product manager asks what's new to inform the quarterly roadmap
- A journalist looks for latest trends and surprises for a technology brief
- An executive requests a fresh digest at session start to brief a team
- A developer triggers a new digest collection with /news-run
- A marketing analyst compares today’s digest with yesterday’s to spot connections
