Sonarbay News

Search and analyze global news using SonarBay News Intelligence. Provides real-time access to 7 days of worldwide news coverage via CLI or REST API. Use when...

Security Scan

The skill's description and runtime instructions are internally coherent for a news CLI/REST integration, but the SKILL.md recommends running remote install scripts (curl | sh and PowerShell iex) which is a high-risk install pattern and should be examined before use.

Purpose & Capability

Name/description (news search, trending, counts) align with the documented CLI commands and REST endpoints. No unrelated credentials, binaries, or config paths are requested — the declared purpose matches what the instructions show.

Instruction Scope

SKILL.md stays within the news-search domain (CLI usage, REST endpoints, examples). It does not instruct reading local files or unrelated environment variables. However, the Install section explicitly tells users to pipe remote shell/PowerShell scripts into a shell (curl https://sonarbay.com/install.sh | sh and irm https://sonarbay.com/install.ps1 | iex), which expands scope to executing arbitrary remote code on the host.

Install Mechanism

There is no formal install spec in the registry, but the documentation instructs running remote install scripts directly from sonarbay.com via pipe-to-shell and PowerShell 'iex'. This pattern downloads and executes remote code without checksums or release verification and is high-risk. Although the domain is the service domain (sonarbay.com), it is not a vetted release host like a known package registry; the script contents are not included for review.

Credentials

The skill declares no required environment variables or credentials and the REST endpoints state 'No authentication required'. That is proportionate for a public read-only news API. There is no request for unrelated secrets or system credentials in the SKILL.md.

Persistence & Privilege

Skill metadata does not request always-on inclusion or special privileges. The CLI's install and 'sonarbay update' command imply the installed tool will persist on the system if installed by the user; this is expected but should be treated as installing third-party software (inspect installer first).

Scan Findings in Context

[no-regex-findings] expected: The static regex scanner found no code files to analyze (instruction-only skill). The SKILL.md itself contains remote-install commands (curl | sh, iex) which the scanner did not flag because it only scanned code files; those installer URLs should be manually reviewed.

What to consider before installing

This skill looks like a legitimate news CLI/REST integration, but exercise caution before running the installer commands it documents. Never pipe remote scripts directly into a shell without reviewing them: fetch the installer (curl https://sonarbay.com/install.sh -o install.sh) and inspect its contents and checksums first. Prefer using documented package managers or official release pages when available. If you must install, do so in an isolated environment (container or VM), verify HTTPS and the domain, look for published checksums or signed releases, and consider using the REST endpoints directly (curl against https://sonarbay.com/v1/...) to avoid executing third-party install scripts. Because the registry entry has no homepage and the source is 'unknown', verify the vendor and review the installer before trusting it with your system.

SonarBay News Intelligence

Real-time access to 7 days of global news, updated every 15 minutes. ~100K+ articles from thousands of sources worldwide.

CLI

The primary way to access SonarBay.

Install

# Mac/Linux
curl -fsSL https://sonarbay.com/install.sh | sh

# Windows (PowerShell)
irm https://sonarbay.com/install.ps1 | iex

Search News

sonarbay search "AI regulation"
sonarbay search "climate change" -n 20 -s newest
sonarbay search "Tesla" --country US --source reuters.com

Flag	Description
-n <num>	Results per page (default: 10)
-p <num>	Page number (default: 1)
-s <sort>	relevance (default), newest, oldest
--country <code>	Filter by country code (e.g. US, IN, DE)
--source <domain>	Filter by source domain
--json	Raw JSON output for piping

Trending Entities

sonarbay trending
sonarbay trending -t organizations -w 48h -n 10

Flag	Description
-t <type>	persons (default), organizations, countries, source
-w <window>	Time window: 1h, 6h, 12h, 24h (default), 48h, 7d
-n <num>	Number of results (default: 20)

Time-Series Counts

sonarbay counts "bitcoin" -i 1h -w 72

Flag	Description
-i <interval>	Bucket size: 15m, 1h (default), 6h, 1d
-w <hours>	Lookback window in hours (default: 24)

Other Commands

sonarbay status          # Health check
sonarbay update          # Self-update to latest version
sonarbay --version       # Show version

Pipe-Friendly

Every command supports --json for scripting and piping:

sonarbay search "OpenAI" --json | jq '.results[].title'
sonarbay trending --json | jq '.trending[:5]'
sonarbay counts "inflation" --json | jq '.buckets[] | select(.count > 100)'

Common Patterns

Monitor a topic over time

1. Run sonarbay counts "topic" -w 72 to see the trend
2. Identify spikes in the histogram
3. Run sonarbay search "topic" -s newest to find what triggered a spike

Find who's making news

1. Run sonarbay trending -t persons or -t organizations
2. Search for a specific entity to get articles

Compare coverage across sources

1. Search the same topic with different --source filters
2. Compare result counts and article titles

REST API (Fallback)

If the CLI is not available, use the REST API directly.

Base URL: https://sonarbay.com

Endpoint	Description
GET /v1/search?q=<query>&per_page=10&sort=relevance	Search articles
GET /v1/trending?type=persons&hours=24&limit=20	Trending entities
GET /v1/counts?q=<query>&interval=1h&hours=24	Time-series counts
GET /v1/article/<id>	Single article by ID
GET /v1/status	Health check

All endpoints return JSON. No authentication required.

Data Details

• Coverage: 7-day rolling window, ~100K+ articles
• Update frequency: Every 15 minutes
• Sources: Thousands of global news outlets
• Languages: Primarily English, with multilingual coverage
• Fields per article: title, source, url, date (ISO), countries, location names
• Country codes: ISO 2-letter (US, UK, IN, DE, etc.)