daily-tech-broadcast_skill

Overview

This skill fetches current-day technology news headlines from configurable, crawlable sources (for example Sina Tech and IT Home) and produces a plain-text digest. It requires no API key, uses only Python standard libraries, and is optimized for low token usage. It's suitable for scheduled cron jobs or on-demand manual triggers to deliver concise tech briefings.

How this skill works

The script crawls a list of configured news source URLs, extracts headline text using simple HTML parsing and regex, and aggregates results into a short plain-text bulletin written to stdout. If one source fails, the script continues with remaining sources; if all sources fail, it outputs a short fallback message so downstream systems can still deliver a notice. Configure sources by editing the NEWS_SOURCES list in the script.

When to use it

• When a user asks for a 'daily tech broadcast', 'tech news digest', or 'today's tech headlines'.
• As a cron job for automated daily distribution to channels or mailing lists.
• For low-cost, low-token briefing generation without API keys or paid services.
• When you need a lightweight fallback to web APIs for headline aggregation.
• During demos or integrations that require plain-text output to stdout for piping.

Best practices

• Keep NEWS_SOURCES minimal and ordered by reliability; the script uses order for preference.
• Run via the recommended exec command so stdout is captured for delivery and stderr remains for debug logs.
• Avoid vague trigger phrases like 'search today important tech news' to prevent unintended web_search behavior.
• Monitor cron logs; the script writes human-readable fallback messages when scraping fails.
• Extend parsing only when necessary; rely on robust selectors to reduce breakage from site changes.

Example use cases

• A daily cron job that posts a short tech bulletin to a team chat every morning.
• On-demand user request in a channel: 'Please run the daily tech broadcast now.'
• Integrating into an alerting pipeline where minimal headline summaries are forwarded to subscribers.
• A lightweight replacement during API outages or to reduce dependence on paid news APIs.
• Testing or demo environments where no API keys are available but live headlines are desired.