nodecode-distro-reader

Distro Reader: search and read Distro's independent news, stories, books and podcasts, with Distro's own eight reader tools. A Nodecode rewrite of Distro-Media/hermes-plugin-distro-reader by Distro-Media.

Get it

Tell the agent "add the distro reader cell", or run nodecode add nc://distro-reader.

Set it up

Nothing. Distro's public reader needs no key and no account, so the cell works the moment it is turned on: discovery, free stories, books and media series all answer without credentials. The section exists only for tuning:

Member	Default	What it is
`endpoint`	`https://reader.distro.media/mcp/reader/stream`	the reader's MCP endpoint; name another only for a mirror of your own
`timeout_seconds`	`60`	one call's ceiling
`html_delivery`	`link`	a rendered story or book arrives as a page and its `renderUrl`, not as a wall of HTML
`page_limit`	`10`	how many headlines one feed or search answers with unless the call names its own count
`max_chars`	`20000`	how much of a rendered page's text reaches the model; `0` leaves it whole

A section with an endpoint that is not an http(s) address refuses at start and says so on /cells; fix it in /settings and run (restart-cells). No member is required.

/distro-reader with no argument reports which endpoint the cell is on and what it offers, without dialling anything.

Use it

Ask for what you want; the model picks the tool. The eight are the plugin's eight, with the server's own argument names.

Tool	Use
`distro_feed_latest`	recent stories, all publications or one (`publication` slug or `publicationId`, `limit`)
`distro_search`	full-text search over published stories (`query`, `limit`)
`distro_story_read`	one story's text, by `storyId`, `slug` (`"<publication>/<story>"`) or `url`
`distro_media_series`	a podcast or video series and its episodes (`publication`, `series`)
`distro_story_render_hud`	the story as Distro's own reading page (`htmlDelivery` `link` or `inline`)
`distro_book_render_hud`	a book: cover, table of contents, free chapters, the whole-book offer
`distro_payment_info`	what a premium item costs and by which rail — read-only (`contentId`)
`distro_tip`	the tip menu, or the x402 handoff for one approved amount (`storyId`, `newslodeSlug`, `amount`)

From the keyboard: /distro-reader <query> runs one search and shows what came back; /distro-reader feed [publication] shows headlines. The same verbs are Lisp, from eval:

(distro-reader:find-stories "decentralized ai" :limit 5)
(distro-reader:latest :publication "deai-news" :limit 10)
(distro-reader:story :slug "deai-news/a-story")
(distro-reader:payment-info 1195)
(distro-reader:server-tools)

(help :distro-reader) is the model's guide: the discovery and reading workflow, the digest and archive-research routines, and the payment rules — the plugin's three skills in one topic.

Money

distro_payment_info and distro_tip answer instructions and an x402 handoff; the payment itself is signed by a wallet the user runs, outside this cell, exactly as it was outside the plugin. The manual's rule is the plugin's: show the price, token, network and resource first, get explicit approval of that exact amount, and report a payment as done only from settlement evidence that says settled (or say no new charge occurred when it says skipped_already_owned).

The endpoint is the plugin's endpoint

The original was a portable manifest (plugin.json + mcp.json) registering Distro's Streamable HTTP MCP server as an untrusted server, plus three skills. The server is stateless, so this cell posts the same JSON-RPC (tools/call, tools/list) itself through nlk:http — one request a call, no MCP client, no Node, no local server. The tool names, argument names and descriptions are the server's, read from its own tools/list.

Not ported

The MCP client's own machinery — the session handshake, the untrusted-server approval gate. The endpoint needs no session, and the eight tools are calls the model already decides to make.
The visual reader's payload in full. Inline HTML can run to hundreds of kilobytes; the cell asks for link delivery by default and clips a long page to max_chars. htmlDelivery: "inline" still answers the whole page when a user wants it.
The skills as files. Their guidance is the manual topic; there is no skills/ tree to read.

Test

From the cells repository root:

.github/test-cell.sh tools/nodecode-distro-reader

Every request is a stubbed nlk:http, so nothing reaches Distro and no account is needed.

MIT licensed, as the original is.