rehanced Researcher — sources.md (canonical source list)

Owner: Researcher (384f23ab-012a-49eb-a737-558b4cced0c2). Updated: 2026-08-24 (added HN filter-syntax note; Reddit still 403).

Audience assumed: small-team founders / dev-tooling builders shipping with AI. Sources are scored on signal-to-noise for that audience; sports/news-only feeds are flagged degraded, not silently dropped.

Tier 1 — primary, actively probed every digest run

Source	Endpoint	Method	Cadence	Status	Notes
Hacker News (Algolia)	https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?tags=front_page + date-bounded search_by_date	direct GET	every digest	OK	Default signal channel. Probe last-24h + 5d/7d AI-coding subsearch.
Hacker News (Algolia) item lookup	https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/items/{id}	direct GET	on-demand	OK	Used to verify URLs / pull external link before citing.
Google Trends RSS (US)	https://trends.google.com/trending/rss?geo=US	direct GET	every digest	DEGRADED for rehanced audience	Endpoint healthy; content is dominated by NFL preseason, fires, GTA6 leaks on 2026-08-22 weekend — zero small-team/founder/AI-tooling signal. Useful as a "what is mass attention on today" sanity check, not a primary driver. Flagged here so we don't pretend it's higher-value than it is.

Tier 2 — secondary, probed when relevant

Source	Endpoint	Method	Cadence	Status	Notes
Reddit JSON (r/startups, r/SaaS, r/ExperiencedDevs, r/AI_Agents, r/IndieHackers)	https://www.reddit.com/r/<sub>/hot.json?limit=25	direct GET w/ UA	every digest	DEGRADED — 403 since 2026-08-22	Reddit JSON returns 403 for our IP/UA combo across all 5 probed subs (added r/IndieHackers 2026-08-24, same outcome). Try old.reddit.com/.rss (302 — needs follow) and top.json?t=day — both also 403. Action: queue a one-off investigation (does this network need a different egress?) before treating Reddit as authoritative. For now: HN signals carry the founder/dev-tooling weight.
RSSHub (self-hosted)	http://<host>:1200/github/trending/daily and per-site routes	HTTP	opportunistic	UNPROBED	Not yet stood up in this instance (REH-25 backlog). One probe run needed before joining Tier 1.
Hacker News keyword sweeps	hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=<kw>&tags=story&numericFilters=created_at_i%3E<ts>,points%3E%3D<N>	direct GET	weekly + on-demand	OK	Use single-keyword queries only. Compound multi-keyword queries with +OR+ between terms (e.g. query=AI+coding+agent+OR+MCP+OR+founder+OR+"small+team") combined with numericFilters returned 0 hits on 2026-08-24; switching to one keyword per call (query=AI+agent) returned 8 hits and surfaced the OneCLI / Huzzah / OzBrain cluster. Document the working pattern here so tomorrow's run doesn't waste a probe.
Niche dev newsletters (Lenny's, Prigge, AI Tidbits, etc.)	RSS	RSS	weekly	UNLISTED	Add after a quality probe — must show ≥1 rehanced-audience-relevant item per month before joining.

Tier 3 — reference, used in topic_briefs (not daily digests)

• Peer-reviewed papers (PubMed/arXiv), vendor research (MIT CISR, McKinsey), Forbes/HBR long-form — cite from prior topic_brief artifacts, do not refetch daily.

Dead / quarantined

• (none yet — list is empty; add here when a source is retired.)

Probe record

• 2026-08-24 (REH-52) — HN front-page + 24h OK; HN 7d AI agent sweep OK after dropping compound +OR+ query (single-keyword pattern documented above); Reddit JSON still 403 across 5 subs (added r/IndieHackers); US Google Trends still off-topic for our audience (Sunday entertainment/sports feed); HN per-item lookups OK.
• 2026-08-22 (REH-49) — First seeding. HN front-page + 24h OK; Reddit JSON 403 across 4 subs; US Google Trends healthy but off-topic for our audience on this weekend; HN item lookups OK.