nz-news · git:20261008.43d384d · 2026-10-08 · sha256 5f4de223afaa9f99
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--- name: nz-news description: "Aggregate RSS feeds from major New Zealand news websites. Use when the task involves NZ news, current events in New Zealand, what's happening in NZ, NZ headlines, or searching NZ stories by topic, timeframe, or source. Discover recent interview episode candidates from public programme feeds with dated provenance and transcript availability. No authentication required." license: MIT compatibility: "Requires Python 3.10+ and network access for live data" metadata: thecolab.category: "events-and-media" thecolab.source_owner: "Participating New Zealand news publishers" thecolab.source_type: "commercial" thecolab.auth: "none" thecolab.access_mode: "html-readonly" thecolab.data_class: "public" thecolab.writes: "false" thecolab.browser: "false" thecolab.risk: "low" thecolab.cache_ttl: "24h" thecolab.schema_version: "1" thecolab.skill_type: "html-readonly" thecolab.pack: "nz-commercial-web" thecolab.source_url: "https://rss.nzherald.co.nz/rss/xml/nzhrsscid_000000001.xml" thecolab.allowed_domains: "rss.nzherald.co.nz,thespinoff.co.nz,www.interest.co.nz,www.newsroom.co.nz,www.rnz.co.nz,www.stuff.co.nz,www.omnycontent.com,omny.fm,podcastindex.org" thecolab.last_verified: "2026-10-07" thecolab.health: "degraded" thecolab.maintainer: "@adam91holt" --- # NZ News ## Goal Aggregate live RSS feeds from major New Zealand news websites into a single CLI tool for quick headline scanning, source browsing, and obvious topic searching. ## Use this when - A user asks about current NZ news or what's happening in New Zealand - A user wants today's headlines from NZ media - A user asks about news from a specific NZ outlet (Stuff, RNZ, NZ Herald, etc.) - A user wants to search NZ news by topic, keyword, timeframe, or source - A user needs a quick New Zealand news briefing ## Do not use this for - International news not covered by NZ outlets - Historical news or archived articles - Paywalled content (some NZ Herald articles may be paywalled) - Social media or non-news content - Real-time breaking news alerts (RSS feeds have a delay) ## Preferred workflow 1. Run `scripts/cli.py` with the narrowest subcommand that answers the task 2. Start with `search` for any topic lookup, either positionally or with flags 3. Use `--source`, `--since-hours`, `--since-date`, `--contains-all`, `--exact`, and `--exclude` when the request needs tighter matching 4. Terms match whole words by default; add `--substring` only when parts of words must match 5. Use default human output for direct answers 6. Use `--json` when another tool or agent needs machine-readable output ## CLI Run with: ```bash python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py <command> [flags] ``` ### Search first The easiest path for topic lookups is now `search`. Examples: ```bash python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py search cyclone python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py search --keyword cyclone --since-hours 24 python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py search --keyword "housing market" --contains-all --source rnz,newsroom python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py search --keyword coalition --exact --since-date 2026-04-01 python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py topic cyclone --exclude sport --limit 5 ``` `topic` is kept as an alias for `search`, so both of these work: ```bash python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py topic cyclone python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py search --keyword cyclone ``` ### `headlines [--limit N] [--json]` Top headlines across all primary sources (NZ Herald, Stuff, RNZ, Newsroom, The Spinoff, Interest.co.nz), deduplicated and sorted by date. Default limit: 10. Examples: ```bash python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py headlines python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py headlines --limit 20 python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py headlines --json ``` ### `source <name> [--limit N] [--json]` News from a specific source. Accepts source ID (for example `rnz`, `stuff`, `herald`) or a source name. Default limit: 10. Examples: ```bash python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py source rnz python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py source stuff --limit 5 python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py source herald --json ``` ### `search [keyword...] [flags]` Search headlines and summaries across NZ sources. You can provide the search term positionally or with `--keyword`. Useful flags: - `--keyword <text>` for flag-based search input - `--source rnz,herald` to limit the search to specific feeds - `--since-hours <hours>` to keep only recent stories - `--since-date <YYYY-MM-DD or ISO timestamp>` for a fixed start date - `--contains-all` to require every term in a multi-word query - `--exact` to match an exact phrase - `--exclude sport,opinion` to remove unwanted terms - `--substring` to use the old matching, where a term can match inside a longer word - `--limit N` - `--json` Matching rules: - Matching is case-insensitive and uses whole words. `AI` matches "AI", "AI-driven", "AI's" and "A.I.". It does not match "against" or "said". - A multi-word query matches as a phrase of whole words. `housing market` matches "housing-market" but not "rehousing marketplace". - `--contains-all` needs each word, in any order. `--exact` needs the full phrase. `--exclude` removes a story if it has the full excluded term as whole words; each excluded word also covers its simple plural (`sport` drops "sports" but not "transport"). - Hyphens, apostrophes and other punctuation separate words, so `co-op` matches "co-op" and "co op". Macrons and other accents fold, so `Māori` matches "Māori" and "Maori". - `--substring` cannot be used with `--exact`. JSON shape: - `fetchedAt` - `keyword` - `matchMode`: `phrase` (default), `contains-all`, `exact`, or `substring` (`--substring` only) - `wordMatch`: `true` unless `--substring` is set - `sourcesQueried` - `sourcesOk` - `filters.sourceIds` - `filters.sinceHours` - `filters.sinceDate` - `filters.exclude` - `filters.limit` - `totalMatching` - `returnedCount` - `items[]` with `title`, `url`, `published`, `source`, `sourceId`, `summary` - `errors[]` Examples: ```bash python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py search cyclone python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py search --keyword cyclone --since-hours 24 python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py search --keyword "housing market" --contains-all --source rnz,newsroom python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py search --keyword coalition --exact --since-date 2026-04-01 python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py topic cyclone --exclude sport --limit 5 --json ``` ### `sources [--json]` List all available news sources with a live status check showing which feeds are working, how many items each returned, and response time. Examples: ```bash python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py sources python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py sources --json ``` ### `summary [--json]` Brief summary showing total story count across sources and the top 5 headlines. Examples: ```bash python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py summary python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py summary --json ``` ### `interviews --programme NAME [--contains TEXT] [--limit N] [--json]` Discover interview candidates in the last90days from one programme feed. The window is exactly the previous 90 days through the current UTC instant; future and undated episodes are excluded. `mike-hosking` is live-tested. `rnz-morning-report` currently reports a robots block without fetching its feed. ```bash python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py interviews --programme mike-hosking --limit 5 --json python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py interviews --programme mike-hosking --contains Minister --json python3 skills/nz-news/scripts/cli.py interviews --programme rnz-morning-report --json ``` Results contain source URL, programme, source-title speaker attribution, publication date, unknown broadcast date, advertised transcript links, and exact feed/GUID/date-field provenance. Speaker attribution is explicitly unverified; this does not establish an utterance, identity, office history or party alignment. No political persuasion, voter profiling, audio or transcript downloads. The feed read is capped at 512 KiB. Only complete items in that prefix count. `coverage.window_complete` is false: this is discovery within a rolling window, not a complete 90-day archive. A no-match result is scoped to the scanned prefix. The JSON result envelope distinguishes `empty`, `blocked`, `unavailable` and `schema_error`. See [interview API notes](references/api-notes.md). ## Sources | ID | Name | Format | Type | |---|---|---|---| | herald | NZ Herald | RSS | Primary | | stuff | Stuff | Atom | Primary | | rnz | RNZ | RSS | Primary | | newsroom | Newsroom | RSS | Primary | | spinoff | The Spinoff | Atom (`/api/rss`) | Primary | | interest | Interest.co.nz | RSS | Primary | | rnz-politics | RNZ Politics | RSS | Category | | rnz-business | RNZ Business | RSS | Category | | rnz-national | RNZ National | RSS | Category | | rnz-world | RNZ World | RSS | Category | | rnz-sport | RNZ Sport | RSS | Category | | rnz-te-ao-maori | RNZ Te Ao Māori | RSS | Category | Primary sources are queried by default. Category feeds (RNZ sub-feeds) are available via `source <id>` and `search --source <id>`, but excluded from `headlines` and `summary` to avoid duplicate stories. ## Setup No API key required — runs on the Python 3 standard library only. ## Resources - CLI entrypoint: `scripts/cli.py` - Live smoke test: `scripts/smoke_test.py` ## Notes - No API key required - No external XML parsing dependencies, uses regex-based RSS and Atom parsing - Default output is human-readable, `--json` output is for chaining into other tools or agent steps - Headlines are deduplicated by normalised title across sources - RNZ category feeds may overlap with the main RNZ feed ## Source notes Read `references/source-notes.md` for source ownership, access, and freshness boundaries.