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News

Connect Toby to Hacker News and, optionally, The Guardian to fetch latest headlines and search recent articles from chat.

The News plugin ships with Toby.app under ~/.toby/plugins/.

Prerequisites​

Configure​

Open Toby.app → Settings → Integrations → News and click Setup Guide. The wizard asks you to:

  1. Choose a default source: Hacker News and The Guardian, Hacker News only, or The Guardian only.
  2. Optionally paste a free Guardian Open Platform key. Leave it blank to use Hacker News only. The Guardian only requires a key.
  3. Connect. Toby checks Hacker News immediately, and The Guardian when a key is set.

You can still edit the fields directly on the News detail page:

FieldDescription
Default sourceall (Hacker News plus Guardian when a key is set), hacker-news, or guardian
Guardian API keyOptional Open Platform key for The Guardian
Default Guardian sectionOptional desk for Guardian requests that do not specify a section

Connect​

Setup Guide connects for you. You can also click Connect on the News detail page. Toby checks Hacker News immediately. If you added a Guardian key, it validates that too.

Verify​

Return to Settings → Integrations. News should show as connected and healthy.

Disconnect​

Select News in Settings → Integrations and click Disconnect. This clears Toby's connection flag. Remove the API key in configure if you want it gone from stored credentials.

What you can do in chat​

CapabilityExamples
Hacker News“What's on the HN front page?” / “Any good Show HN posts today?”
World news“What are the top world headlines?” (needs a Guardian key)
Topic search“Search Hacker News for SQLite” / “What has The Guardian written about interest rates?”

Each story is attributed to Hacker News or The Guardian. Toby returns headlines, short summaries, dates, and article URLs — not the full article body.

Example chat prompts​

  • “What's on Hacker News right now?”
  • “Search news about the Fed and inflation.”
  • “Show me recent Ask HN posts.”
  • “Any recent science stories I should know about?”

Tips​

  • Ask for Hacker News explicitly when you want the front page, Show HN, or Ask HN.
  • Guardian sections include world, us-news, uk-news, technology, business, sport, science, environment, culture, and politics.
  • For a specific subject, ask Toby to search rather than only fetch latest headlines.
  • If Guardian Connect fails, re-copy the key from the Open Platform dashboard. Hacker News still works without it.