🦞 AI News Aggregator

Collects news on any topic, writes an English editorial digest using your choice of AI provider, and posts it to Discord.

Default (AI topic): TechCrunch · The Verge · NYT Tech (RSS) + curated AI YouTube channels Custom topics: Tavily news search + YouTube topic search (no Shorts, sorted by views) AI providers: OpenAI (default) · DeepSeek · Anthropic Claude — switchable per request

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Network Endpoints

Endpoint	Purpose	Condition
https://api.deepseek.com/chat/completions	AI editorial summarisation	Always (required)
https://discord.com/api/webhooks/...	Post digest to Discord	Always (required)
https://techcrunch.com/.../feed/	RSS news (AI topic)	Default AI topic only
https://www.theverge.com/rss/...	RSS news (AI topic)	Default AI topic only
https://www.nytimes.com/svc/collections/...	RSS news (AI topic)	Default AI topic only
https://api.tavily.com/search	Custom topic news search	Only if TAVILY_API_KEY set
https://api.twitterapi.io/twitter/tweet/advanced_search	Twitter search	Only if TWITTERAPI_IO_KEY set
https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/...	YouTube search	Only if YOUTUBE_API_KEY set

The script does not contact OpenAI endpoints. The openai package is used solely as an HTTP client pointed at https://api.deepseek.com. OPENAI_API_KEY is explicitly removed from the environment at startup.

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Usage Examples

• "Get today's AI news"
• "Collect news about crypto"
• "Last week's news about climate change"
• "What's trending in AI today?"
• "Get crypto news from the last 3 days using OpenAI"
• "Show me recent Bitcoin YouTube videos"
• "Summarise WWIII news with Claude"
• "AI news using GPT-4o"
• "AI news dry run" (preview without posting to Discord)
• "Test my Discord webhook"

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API Keys

Key	Required	Where to get it
DISCORD_WEBHOOK_URL	✅ Always	Discord → Channel Settings → Integrations → Webhooks → Copy URL
DEEPSEEK_API_KEY	If using DeepSeek (default)	platform.deepseek.com/api_keys
OPENAI_API_KEY	If using OpenAI	platform.openai.com/api-keys
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	If using Claude	console.anthropic.com → API Keys
TAVILY_API_KEY	For custom topics	app.tavily.com
TWITTERAPI_IO_KEY	Optional	twitterapi.io
YOUTUBE_API_KEY	Optional	console.cloud.google.com → YouTube Data API v3

AI Providers & Models

Provider	--provider value	Default model	Best for
OpenAI	openai (default)	gpt-4o-mini	Quality, reliability
DeepSeek	deepseek	deepseek-chat	Cost-effective, fast
Claude	claude	claude-3-5-haiku-20241022	Nuanced writing

Override per request using the --provider flag. Set a permanent non-default with openclaw config set env.AI_PROVIDER '"deepseek"'. Override the model with --model (e.g. --model gpt-4o or --model claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022).

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Implementation

IMPORTANT: Always run news_aggregator.py using the steps below. Do NOT search the web manually or improvise a response — the script handles all fetching, summarisation, and Discord posting.

Step 1 — Locate the script

The script is bundled with this skill. Find it:

SKILL_DIR=$(ls -d ~/.openclaw/skills/ai-news-aggregator-sl 2>/dev/null || ls -d ~/.openclaw/skills/news-aggregator 2>/dev/null)
SCRIPT="$SKILL_DIR/news_aggregator.py"
echo "Script: $SCRIPT"
ls "$SCRIPT"

Step 2 — Check uv is available

which uv && uv --version || echo "uv not found"

If uv is not found, ask the user to install it from their system package manager or from https://docs.astral.sh/uv/getting-started/installation/. Do not run a curl-pipe-sh command on the user's behalf.

Step 3 — API keys

Env vars are passed automatically by OpenClaw from its config. No .env file is needed.

Verify the required keys are set (without revealing values):

[[ -n "$OPENAI_API_KEY" ]]      && echo "OPENAI_API_KEY: set"      || echo "OPENAI_API_KEY: MISSING (required for default provider)"
[[ -n "$DISCORD_WEBHOOK_URL" ]] && echo "DISCORD_WEBHOOK_URL: set" || echo "DISCORD_WEBHOOK_URL: MISSING"

If any are missing, ask the user to register them:

openclaw config set env.OPENAI_API_KEY '<key>'
openclaw config set env.DISCORD_WEBHOOK_URL '<url>'
# Optional alternatives:
openclaw config set env.DEEPSEEK_API_KEY '<key>'
openclaw config set env.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY '<key>'

Step 4 — Parse the request

Extract topic, days, and provider from what the user said:

For AI provider:

User said	--provider	--model
"use OpenAI" / "with GPT" / "using ChatGPT"	--provider openai	(omit)
"use Claude" / "with Anthropic"	--provider claude	(omit)
"use DeepSeek" / nothing specified	(omit — default)	(omit)
"use GPT-4o" / "with gpt-4o"	--provider openai	--model gpt-4o
"use claude sonnet"	--provider claude	--model claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022
"use deepseek reasoner"	--provider deepseek	--model deepseek-reasoner

Extract topic and days from what the user said:

User said	--topic	--days
"AI news" / "tech news" / nothing specific	(omit — default AI)	1
"crypto news"	--topic "crypto"	1
"news about climate change"	--topic "climate change"	1
"last week's crypto news"	--topic "crypto"	7
"last 3 days of Bitcoin news"	--topic "Bitcoin"	3
"yesterday's AI news"	(omit topic)	1
"this week in AI"	(omit topic)	7

For report type:

User said	flag to add
"news" / "articles" / "digest"	--report news
"trending" / "Twitter" / "YouTube"	--report trending
"dry run" / "preview" / "don't post"	--dry-run
"test Discord" / "test webhook"	--test-discord
anything else	(omit — runs all)

Step 5 — Run with uv

uv run automatically installs all dependencies from the script's inline metadata — no venv setup needed.

uv run "$SCRIPT" [--topic "TOPIC"] [--days N] [--report TYPE] [--provider PROVIDER] [--model MODEL] [--dry-run]

Examples:

# AI news today — DeepSeek (default)
uv run "$SCRIPT"

# Crypto news using OpenAI
uv run "$SCRIPT" --topic "crypto" --provider openai

# Last week's climate news using Claude
uv run "$SCRIPT" --topic "climate change" --days 7 --provider claude

# Use a specific model
uv run "$SCRIPT" --topic "Bitcoin" --provider openai --model gpt-4o

# Trending AI on Twitter and YouTube
uv run "$SCRIPT" --report trending

# Preview without posting to Discord
uv run "$SCRIPT" --topic "Bitcoin" --dry-run

# Test webhook connection
uv run "$SCRIPT" --test-discord

Step 6 — Report back

Tell the user what was posted to Discord, how many items were found per source, and note any skipped sources (e.g. "YouTube skipped — YOUTUBE_API_KEY not set").