wget-reader_skill

Overview

This skill fetches content from URLs using the wget command-line tool. It supports reading web pages to stdout, downloading files to disk, and retrieving API responses with custom headers. Use it to reliably pull remote content in scripts or interactive sessions.

How this skill works

The skill validates URL format, then constructs a wget command with flags tailored to the requested action. For quick reads it uses quiet output to stdout, for file downloads it specifies an output filename, and for API calls it adds headers like Accept: application/json. It also exposes common options for timeouts, retries, and user agent customization.

When to use it

• Read a web page or API response directly to your terminal or pipeline
• Download a remote file and save it with a specific filename
• Fetch JSON or other API data while sending custom HTTP headers
• Add timeouts and retry behavior for unstable endpoints
• Integrate remote fetches into shell scripts or automation pipelines

Best practices

• Always quote URLs to handle spaces and special characters
• Use -q and -O- for clean stdout output in scripts
• Set --timeout and --tries for unreliable networks
• Respect robots.txt, rate limits, and remote usage policies
• Avoid --no-check-certificate unless you understand the security risk
• Validate URL format before attempting to fetch

Example use cases

• Read the HTML of https://example.com: wget -qO- "https://example.com"
• Save a file to disk: wget -O "data.json" "https://example.com/data.json"
• Retrieve JSON API output: wget -qO- --header="Accept: application/json" "https://api.example.com/data"
• Download with retry and timeout: wget --timeout=30 --tries=3 -O "output.txt" "<URL>"
• Pipe fetched content into other tools: wget -qO- "<URL>" | jq '.'