Topic Radar

---
name: topic-radar
description: Find what is actually hot and new about one topic today, ranked across Hacker News, GitHub, Google News, Google Trends (Vietnam) and Reddit — plus TikTok, Instagram and YouTube when an Apify token is set — for an agent built with content-agent-kit. Use when the user names a subject and wants today's angle — "hôm nay có gì hot về X", "tin mới nhất về X", "what's hot in X", "what should I post about X today" — or when a daily run needs an idea it has not used before. Writes brain/radar/<date>-<topic>.json plus a readable brief, and remembers what it handed out so tomorrow is not a repeat.
---

# Topic radar

The user says a topic. You come back with the two or three things worth making a video about
*today*, each with a reason it is worth making today. Not a search-results dump — a shortlist
you would defend.

The scoring is done for you, in code, so it is the same every morning. Your job is the part
code cannot do: read the primary sources and decide whether the top-ranked thing is actually a
story.

> Antigravity / Gemini: same steps, run the commands directly.

## Hướng dẫn từng bước cho người dùng

> Chạy lệnh `node scripts/…` ở **thư mục gốc của kit** — thư mục có `AGENTS.md`, hai cấp trên file này (nếu skill được cài bằng `install-skills.mjs --kit`, đường dẫn nằm trong file `.kit-root` cạnh file này).

Dẫn người dùng theo đúng các bước dưới, bằng lời đơn giản. Trước khi bắt đầu: một câu nói skill sẽ làm gì, mất khoảng bao lâu, cần người dùng chuẩn bị gì. Đầu mỗi bước báo **"Bước n/N — <tên bước>"** kèm một câu đang làm gì. Khi cần người dùng làm gì, chỉ hỏi đúng một việc. Kết thúc: kết quả nằm ở đâu và việc nên làm tiếp.

| Bước | Agent làm gì | Người dùng cần làm |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Nhận chủ đề | Hỏi chủ đề và khoảng thời gian (hôm nay, tuần này); có `brain/insights.md` thì đọc trước — góc nào, dạng hook nào đã hiệu quả với kênh này | Nói chủ đề |
| 2. Dò tin | Chạy `topic-radar.mjs --topic "<chủ đề>" --top 10` | — |
| 3. Đọc nguồn gốc | Mở trang gốc của 3 tin đầu để kiểm tra thật hay đồn | — |
| 4. Báo cáo | Đưa 2–3 tin, mỗi tin: vì sao đáng làm hôm nay, nguồn, góc kể | Chọn tin muốn làm |
| 5. Chuyển tiếp | Nếu muốn video, chuyển sang `daily-topic-video` với file radar vừa có | Đồng ý làm video |

**Hay vướng:**
- Không có tin mới → nói thẳng; thử `--days 7` hoặc chủ đề gần đó.
- Reddit không có số vote → bình thường, kết quả vẫn dùng được; báo cáo có ghi rõ.
- Hỏi "sao tin hôm qua không thấy" → radar đã giao tin đó rồi; thêm `--no-dedup` để xem lại.

## Step 1 — Run the radar

```bash
node scripts/research/topic-radar.mjs --topic "<what the user said>" --top 10
```

It fans out across five **keyless** sources (plus the Apify platforms when `APIFY_TOKEN` is set), merges duplicates, scores, drops anything an
earlier run already handed out, and writes `brain/radar/<date>-<slug>.json` + `.md`.
It prints `RADAR=<path>` — capture that.

Flags worth knowing:

| flag | when |
| --- | --- |
| `--days 7` | the user said "this week" / the topic moves fast |
| `--days 90` | a slow field, or a first run with nothing to show |
| `--half-life 1` | breaking news — punish anything over a day old hard |
| `--no-dedup` | the user asks why yesterday's story is missing |
| `--dry-run` | you want to look before writing state |

**Read the `## Sources` block in the output.** It says what each source returned. A line like
`reddit — 47 items — RSS fallback … no vote counts` is telling you that source's ranking is
weaker than usual, and that is worth knowing before you trust position #1.

## Step 2 — Read the primary sources

The radar ranks *attention*. It cannot tell a launch from a rumour. Take the top 3 and open
what they actually point at:

- `WebFetch` the **primary** source — the announcement, the paper, the changelog, the repo
  README. Not a blog summarising it, and not the aggregator thread.
- Pull out the concrete, quotable facts: numbers, dates, names, what changed.
- If the link is a discussion thread, the item carries `discussionUrl` separately — read
  both. What the thread argues about is usually the better hook.

If a top item turns out to be a rewrite of something with no primary source behind it, **drop
it and say so**. Ranking high on engagement and being true are different properties.

The full method, including screenshot evidence and B-roll, is in **`research-and-capture`**.

## Step 3 — Report

For each story you kept:

```markdown
**<the story in one line>**
Why today: <what changed, with the number or date that proves it>
Source: <primary url>   ·   score 0.69 · 1d old · hn + reddit
Angle: <the specific take — not "an overview of X">
Genre: news
```

Pick `Genre` from `templates/VIDEO_GENRES.template.json` — it decides which frames the script
uses and in what order. `news` fits most radar output; `technical-deepdive` fits a paper or a
release with real internals; `listicle` fits "five things shipped this week".

Sort by your judgement, not by the score. The score got you the shortlist; you rank it.

## Step 4 — Hand off

The user usually wants a video next. That whole chain is **`daily-topic-video`** — do not
re-run the radar for it, pass it the `RADAR=` path you already have.

## When there is nothing

Some mornings a topic has produced nothing new. The script says so and exits with an empty
`RADAR=`. **Say that plainly.** Offer `--days 90`, or a neighbouring topic, or `--no-dedup` to
show what was already used.

Do not widen the window silently and present week-old news as today's. Do not fill the gap
from memory — you do not know what shipped this week. An honest "nothing today" is a usable
answer; a confident wrong one costs a video.

## Notes

- **No API keys needed.** Hacker News, GitHub, Google News, Google Trends and Reddit answer
  without an account. `GITHUB_TOKEN` is read if present but only raises a rate limit.
- **Platforms (optional, paid).** With `APIFY_TOKEN`, `tiktok` and `youtube` join by default
  (`APIFY_PLATFORMS` adds `instagram`, `facebook`). A platform item's heat is its view count —
  say which platform a top story came from; a TikTok trend and a news story are different asks.
- **Google Trends returns nothing on most topics** — it is the whole country's top 10–20
  searches. When it DOES match, that is the strongest "make it today" signal in the report.
- **Reddit's JSON API 403s** unauthenticated clients on most networks; the source falls back
  to its Atom feed, which has the posts but no vote counts. Reported, not hidden.
- **The news wire is Vietnamese by default** (`NEWS_RSS_LOCALE=vi|VN|VN:vi`). Set
  `en|US|US:en` for an English-market agent.
- **The seen-ledger** lives at `brain/radar-seen.json` and records only what was handed out,
  not everything found — so a story ranked 40th on Monday can still surface on Tuesday.
- To see one source's raw output when a result looks wrong:
  `node scripts/research/hot-sources.mjs --topic "…" --sources hn --json`

## What not to do

- Do not write the video from the radar entry alone. The title is an aggregator's title; the
  facts are in the primary source.
- Do not present a GitHub repo's star count as adoption. `created:` filtering means these are
  weeks old — stars that new measure attention, not use.
- Do not pass `--no-dedup` to make a thin morning look fuller. That is how the same story gets
  posted twice with a different voice.