Google News Api

v0.1.0

Scrape structured news data from Google News automatically. Use when the user asks for news on a topic, industry trends, or PR monitoring. Triggers on keywords like "find news about", "track trends", or "monitor PR".

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byHenk Nie@phheng
MIT-0
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LicenseMIT-0 · Free to use, modify, and redistribute. No attribution required.
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medium confidence
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Purpose & Capability
The code and SKILL.md call BrowserAct's API (api.browseract.com) using a workflow template to scrape Google News, which aligns with the stated purpose. However the registry metadata claims no required environment variables while both the README and the script require BROWSERACT_API_KEY — a clear metadata/requirement mismatch.
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Instruction Scope
SKILL.md instructs the agent to check for BROWSERACT_API_KEY and, if missing, to request the API key from the user via chat with a specific message. Asking users to paste API keys into chat is explicit in the instructions and increases risk of secret leakage. There's also a minor path inconsistency in the example invocation (example uses .cursor/skills/... but manifest shows scripts/google_news_api.py).
Install Mechanism
There is no install spec (instruction-only with an included script), so nothing is downloaded during install (low install risk). The Python script depends on the requests library but dependencies are not declared; platform must provide Python + requests. No suspicious external download URLs are used.
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Credentials
Requiring a BrowserAct API key is proportionate to calling BrowserAct's API, but the skill metadata did not declare this required env var. More importantly, the SKILL.md tells the agent to solicit the API key from the user in chat, which is an insecure handling pattern unless the platform provides a secure secret input mechanism — this raises the chance of accidental credential disclosure.
Persistence & Privilege
The skill does not request permanent/always-on installation and does not modify other skills or system-wide agent settings. It runs on demand and uses standard HTTP API calls; no elevated persistence is requested.
What to consider before installing
This skill mostly does what it says (it calls BrowserAct's API to run a Google News scraping workflow), but exercise caution before installing or running it: - The skill requires a BROWSERACT_API_KEY (used in the included script), but the registry metadata does not list this — treat that as a red flag and verify the requirement before handing over secrets. - SKILL.md instructs the agent to ask you to paste your API key into chat. Never paste sensitive API keys into free-form chat unless you trust the receiver and the platform provides a secure secret field. Prefer setting BROWSERACT_API_KEY as an environment variable on the host or using the platform's secure secret storage. - Verify you trust the BrowserAct service (api.browseract.com) and the template ID included in the script. Confirm the URL and service are legitimate for your use case. - Note missing dependency declaration: the script uses the Python requests library; ensure runtime provides it. - The skill's source/homepage is unknown. If you need stronger assurance, ask the publisher for provenance (repo, release notes) or review the BrowserAct workflow output to ensure no unexpected data is being returned or transmitted elsewhere. If you decide to proceed: do not paste secrets into chat; set the API key via a secure mechanism, and run the script in an environment you control so you can inspect network traffic and outputs.

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.

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