Skill flagged — suspicious patterns detected
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Daily News Collector
v1.0.0Daily tech news collection and distribution system. Automated methodology for collecting, curating, and distributing industry news via scheduled cron jobs. U...
⭐ 1· 137·0 current·0 all-time
by@lgy2020
MIT-0
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LicenseMIT-0 · Free to use, modify, and redistribute. No attribution required.
Security Scan
OpenClaw
Suspicious
medium confidencePurpose & Capability
Name/description promises automated daily news collection and distribution — that purpose is coherent with the SKILL.md workflow. However, the skill declares no required environment variables or config paths in the registry metadata while the runtime instructions and included script explicitly require a Tavily API key (TAVILY_API_KEY) and file write/read permissions for weekly-news files. The omission of these required capabilities in the metadata is an inconsistency.
Instruction Scope
SKILL.md instructs the agent to create two cron jobs (collection and distribution), write/read weekly markdown files, use web_fetch and an external Tavily API, and set/check an environment variable. Those actions are within the stated goal, but they also require filesystem and scheduler privileges and handling of an API secret. The instructions also promise the AI will 'set up your Tavily API Key as an environment variable' — that grants the agent discretion to persist a secret and modify system state, which is not explicitly declared or scoped.
Install Mechanism
This is an instruction-only skill with no install spec or code files to be fetched/installed. That minimizes install-time risk (no downloaded executables). The included tavily-search.js is provided as a script in SKILL.md/references, not as an installer.
Credentials
Although the registry lists no required env vars, the tavily-search script and setup docs explicitly require TAVILY_API_KEY. The usage guide says the AI will set the environment variable for you. Requesting and persisting an external API key is reasonable for search integration, but the skill fails to declare this requirement up front. Also the skill suggests swapping in other search APIs (which would require other credentials) without enumerating them, increasing the secret surface.
Persistence & Privilege
The skill instructs creation of recurring cron jobs and writing persistent weekly files. While 'always' is false and autonomous invocation is allowed (normal), the skill still directs the agent to modify system scheduler state and store secrets as env vars. That is a material privilege escalation relative to a purely read-only assistant and should be consented to explicitly by an administrator or run in a sandbox.
What to consider before installing
This skill appears to implement a plausible daily-news workflow, but it has inconsistent metadata and asks the agent (via instructions) to: create cron jobs, write persistent files, and set a Tavily API key (a secret). Before installing: 1) Confirm you trust the Tavily service and the skill's source; 2) Prefer to create the cron jobs and environment variables yourself rather than giving the agent automatic permission to do so; 3) Run the workflow in a restricted environment or container that limits file/cron access; 4) If you must let the agent set up automation, supply a scoped API key (least privilege) and review any scripts it will run (tavily-search.js) for unexpected network endpoints; 5) Update the registry metadata to declare required env vars and config paths so the requested privileges are explicit. These steps will reduce the risk that the agent persists secrets or modifies system-level scheduler state without your full understanding.Like a lobster shell, security has layers — review code before you run it.
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License
MIT-0
Free to use, modify, and redistribute. No attribution required.