/last30days — what's new on topic X over the last 30 days

🧒 End the reply to the operator with a short "In plain words" recap (memory eli5-always).

A fast trend-watch BEFORE strategy: before planning or launching a Deep Research, take a 10-second slice of "what actually moved on this topic in the last 30 days". This is the entry into the GAP phase of the Alpha Protocol (/alfa): recall knows the operator's past, /last30days adds fresh signal from outside → together they outline the hole a DR has to fill.

Three-layer design ([[skill-design-three-layer]]): a thin skill (UX) → a deterministic engine (0 tokens) → an existing store (8 channel databases). The cost ladder [[vault-data-architecture]]: a SQL slice answers cheaply, the LLM only synthesizes the top hits.

Steps

0. RECALL (don't duplicate). Is there already a fresh slice on this topic? Check $IMPORTS_ROOT/alpha\candidates\_last30days-<topicslug>.md plus memory/the vault (/ask <topic>). If the slice is fresh (from today) — reuse it, don't re-run.

1. Deterministic slice (0 tokens, 0 network). Expand the topic into synonyms in both languages you collect in (the model judges what matters): e.g. the topic "sub-agents" → mcp, sub-agent, subagent, agent, orchestr, swarm.

set PYTHONIOENCODING=utf-8
python $IMPORTS_ROOT/watchers\last30days.py --topic "<term1, term2, …>" --days 30 --top 25 --json

→ slices the 8 channel databases (_imports\alpha\<slug>\<slug>.db, refreshed nightly) by window × keys, scores through mine_channel.score, dedups, writes the digest _imports\alpha\candidates\_last30days-<topicslug>.md and prints the top as JSON. It does not re-scrape — the databases are updated by the nightly watch_run.py. Need a guarantee of freshness right now → add --refresh (goes to the network on the subscription session). Empty result → widen the synonyms / raise --days.

2. (optional) Outside freshness — WebSearch. If the topic reaches beyond the operator's Telegram channels (market/releases/competitors) — 1-2 WebSearch queries over the same keys, windowed to the last 30 days. It complements the channel slice, it does not replace it. Skip it for narrowly internal topics.

3. Synthesis (LLM, top hits only — Sonnet). Grunt work → Sonnet ([[model-routing-sonnet-grunt]]; subagent model:'sonnet'). Read ONLY the digest file + the WebSearch results, dedup semantically (cross-channel reposts of the same item), and assemble a tight digest by theme:

• 🆕 What's new — concrete releases/tools/deals/techniques within the window (with a link and a date).
• 🔀 What changed — a shift in consensus or direction versus what the operator already knew (compare against recall).
• 👀 What to watch — early signals, not yet mainstream. Each item is one line + a link. No filler. Mark confidence where it matters.

4. Feed it into strategy. Hand the digest to the GAP phase of /alfa (or straight into a Decision Memo / DR prompt as "fresh 30-day context"). A valuable slice is worth keeping → a vault note via [[obsidian-ingest]] (provenance: the channel databases + the window dates).

Boundaries

Read-only and PRIVATE (Second-Brain layer) — the engine only reads the databases and writes a digest file; nothing goes outward. The scoring is a mechanical detector (engagement + keywords), not "smart" — the smart filtering is step 3. Freshness comes from the nightly watch_run.py; suspect it's stale → --refresh. Topic outside those 8 channels → lean on step 2 (WebSearch), don't invent.

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Like this skill? It is one of 100 in second-brain-starter-kit: the second brain we built for ourselves and run every day at Palo Alto AI Research Lab. Install the whole set with npx skills add tonydzi/second-brain-starter-kit. Everything is open source and free, so take what you need.

Flagships worth a look on their own: secondop-panel (a second opinion from a panel of external models), claude-memory-tidy (stop your agent's memory from rotting), telegram-mcp-kit (your own Telegram over MCP in about 15 minutes).

Author: Anton Dziatkovskii, Palo Alto AI Research Lab. Telegram @tonydzi - WhatsApp +1 341 222 9178 - X @Tony_Stef_

Engineers: want to test-drive this setup? Message me. I hand out free starter seeds to engineers who test and report back, and custom skill requests are welcome.