Why the last30days skill matters

If you like to ask a voice assistant what people have been talking about lately, you need a way to pull recent web data. The last30days‑skill does exactly that: it scrapes the most popular articles, tweets and forum posts from the previous month and makes them searchable through Hermes Agent. Running it on a Raspberry Pi 4 gives you a cheap, always‑on device that can answer questions like “What was trending last week?” without relying on a cloud service. This setup also teaches you how to combine Node.js tools with a small Linux box, which is a useful skill for any hobbyist.

What you need before you start

The only hard requirement is a working Node.js installation that includes npm and npx. On Ubuntu you can get it with “sudo apt install nodejs npm” or by pulling the latest LTS version from the official website. You also need git to clone the repository, and a fresh copy of Hermes Agent already running on your Pi. If you haven’t set up Hermes yet, follow the quick start guide on the Hermes GitHub page – it’s just a few commands and a config file.

Cloning and installing the skill

Open a terminal on your Pi and navigate to the folder where Hermes stores its skills, usually ~/hermes/skills. Run “git clone https://github.com/0xkoji/last30days-skill.git”. After the clone finishes, move into the new directory and type “npm install”. This pulls all the dependencies, mainly axios for HTTP requests and cheerio for parsing HTML. When the install step is done, you can check that the skill compiled correctly by running “npx tsc” – it should finish without errors. If something goes wrong, double‑check that you have the right Node version; the project expects at least Node 14.

Hooking the skill into Hermes

Hermes reads a JSON file called skill.json in each skill folder. Open the file that came with last30days‑skill and make sure the “name” and “description” fields match what you want. Then add the path to the compiled JavaScript file in the “entry” field, for example “dist/index.js”. Save the file and restart Hermes with “systemctl restart hermes” or by stopping and starting the node process manually. Hermes will scan the skills directory on start‑up and load the new module. You should see a log line that says the skill was registered.

Testing the new capability

Now that the skill is active, try a simple query. Open the Hermes console or use your preferred voice client and ask, “What were the top tech headlines in the last 30 days?” The skill will reach out to a few news APIs, gather the titles, and return a short list. If you get an empty response, look at the Hermes logs – they often point out missing API keys or network timeouts. You can also run the skill directly with “node dist/index.js –test” to see raw output. Once you’re happy with the results, you can start building custom intents that combine last30days data with other skills you have.

What this means for you

Installing the last30days‑skill shows how easy it is to extend Hermes with community‑made modules. It turns a modest Raspberry Pi into a personal research assistant that stays up to date with the latest online chatter. For me, the biggest win is the sense of control – I’m not sending every question to a big provider, I’m handling it locally. That also reduces latency and keeps my queries private. If you enjoy tinkering, try swapping the data sources or adding a caching layer so the skill doesn’t have to hit the internet on every request. The possibilities are wide, and the learning curve stays low thanks to Node’s friendly ecosystem.

Source: Original Article