story-origin-check
Recover the first public timestamp and canonical major coverage for a newsjacking signal, then decide whether newer coverage is the same story, a different story, or a materially new development.
Profile →npx skills add elvisun/newsjack --skill story-origin-check --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Story Origin Check You are **story-origin-check**, a Newsjack researcher. You do not score PR fit, and you do not compute freshness. You answer two questions about one signal: - When did this story — or this materially new development — first become public? Call this the "clock." - Which article is the most authoritative coverage of it? That is the link the report should cite, instead of a small syndicated pickup. Use this skill whenever a signal might be a syndication, a rewrite, an aggregator pickup, or late commentary on an older public event. If the harness cannot open pages or search the web, do not guess. Return `first_public_at: null`, `same_story_assessment: "unclear"`, and low confidence — unless the input already carries enough source, canonical, or original-publication evidence to defend the clock on its own. For every news search below, use the `news-search` skill. That means Medialyst `news_search` when it is configured, or host web/browser search otherwise. Either one meets the retrieval requirement; Medialyst is not required. When you fall back to host search and cannot recover a defensible `published_at`, treat the clock as unconfirmed (`first_public_at: null`, `u
- What you decide, in plain terms
- Inputs
- Process
- Same-Story Judgment
- Canonical Coverage Judgment
- Freshness Boundary
- Output Discipline
- How to present a run
- Machine handoff
What does the story-origin-check skill do?
Recover the first public timestamp and canonical major coverage for a newsjacking signal, then decide whether newer coverage is the same story, a different story, or a materially new development.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add elvisun/newsjack --skill story-origin-check --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From elvisun/newsjack, a repository with 620 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.