mvanhorn--last30days-skill/HERMES_SETUP.md

Hermes Setup Guide for last30days

This guide covers installing last30days on Hermes AI Agent.

Prerequisites

1. Hermes installed - See https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent
2. Python 3.12+ - brew install python@3.12 or similar
3. yt-dlp (optional, for YouTube) - brew install yt-dlp

Installation

hermes skills install mvanhorn/last30days-skill/skills/last30days --force

The explicit skills/last30days path fetches the skill straight from this repo's current default branch and deploys it under ~/.hermes/skills/. --force is required because Hermes's install-time security scanner returns a caution verdict for this skill — it flags benign patterns such as reading your own API keys from the environment and calling subprocess to run yt-dlp/bird. --force accepts the caution verdict and installs (it also reinstalls over any existing copy).

Why the explicit path? The shorter hermes skills install mvanhorn/last30days-skill currently resolves through the skills.sh index, which is serving an older cached snapshot of this repo (from before the skill moved under skills/last30days/). Use the explicit .../skills/last30days path above until the index re-crawls — tracked in vercel-labs/skills#1602.

Developer / live-edit alternative

If you're hacking on the skill locally and want edits to propagate to Hermes without re-installing, symlink your working tree:

git clone https://github.com/mvanhorn/last30days-skill.git
mkdir -p ~/.hermes/skills/research
ln -s "$(pwd)/last30days-skill/skills/last30days" ~/.hermes/skills/research/last30days

Usage

In Hermes, invoke with:

last30days "your research topic"

Or with options:

last30days "best mechanical keyboards 2025" --search=reddit,youtube
last30days "AI news" --days=7 --deep

First Run Setup

On first run, the skill will guide you through setup:

1. Auto setup (~30 seconds)

   • Scans browser cookies for X/Twitter
   • Checks/installs yt-dlp for YouTube
   • Best-effort install of digg-pp-cli for Digg AI-news clusters (via @mvanhorn/printing-press-library; binary lands in $HOME/.local/bin — ensure your Hermes gateway PATH includes it, or Digg stays off even after install)
   • Configures free sources (Reddit, HN, Polymarket)

2. Optional: ScrapeCreators

   • Adds TikTok, Instagram, Reddit backup
   • 100 free credits (no expiration)
   • Sign up at scrapecreators.com

3. Optional: API Keys

   • XAI_API_KEY for X/Twitter (alternative to browser cookies)
   • BRAVE_API_KEY for web search

Available Sources

Free (No API Key)

• Reddit - Public discussions and comments
• Hacker News - Tech discussions via Algolia
• Polymarket - Prediction markets
• YouTube - Search and transcripts (requires yt-dlp)
• Digg - AI-news story clusters (requires digg-pp-cli on the agent PATH; auto-installed to $HOME/.local/bin during setup when npx is available)

Requires API Key

• X/Twitter - xAI API key or browser cookies
• TikTok - ScrapeCreators API
• Instagram - ScrapeCreators API
• Web Search - Brave Search API

Troubleshooting

Python not found

# Find Python 3.12+
which python3.12 python3.13 python3.14

# If not installed
brew install python@3.12

yt-dlp not found

brew install yt-dlp
# or
pip install yt-dlp

Check what's configured

cd ~/.hermes/skills/research/last30days
python3.12 scripts/last30days.py --diagnose

Updating

hermes skills install mvanhorn/last30days-skill --force

If you symlinked your working tree (developer alternative above), just git pull in the repo — edits propagate live, no re-install step.

Support

• Original repo: https://github.com/mvanhorn/last30days-skill
• Hermes: https://github.com/mercurial-tf/hermes
• Issues: Please report in the original repo