Our review
Fetches content from a URL using the wget command-line tool, allowing reading web pages, downloading files, or querying APIs.
Strengths
- Simple and straightforward usage with explicit flags
- Support for custom HTTP headers and authentication
- Error handling via timeout and retry attempts
Limitations
- Does not handle web pages requiring JavaScript or browser rendering
- Depends on wget being available in the execution environment
- May be blocked by server-side security measures
Use this skill when you need to quickly retrieve raw content from a URL, such as a file, a static web page, or an API response.
Avoid it for complex interactions with dynamic sites, large downloads requiring advanced resume handling, or when protocols other than HTTP/HTTPS are needed.
Security analysis
CautionThe skill uses wget to fetch remote content, which is a common and legitimate operation, but it carries inherent risks such as downloading malicious payloads or accessing internal networks. The suggestion to use --no-check-certificate weakens TLS security. No destructive or exfiltration actions are directly instructed, but the lack of URL restrictions makes it a powerful tool that could be misused if the AI is tricked.
- •Instructs use of wget, a network tool that can fetch arbitrary URLs, including potentially malicious or internal sites.
- •Mentions --no-check-certificate which disables SSL verification, posing a man-in-the-middle risk.
- •Provides no input validation beyond quoting; could allow crafted URLs to access unintended resources.
Examples
Read the content from https://example.comDownload the file from https://example.com/data.jsonFetch JSON from https://api.example.com/dataname: wget-reader description: Fetch data from URLs. Use when asked to download content, fetch remote files, or read web data. version: 1.0.0
Wget URL Reader
Overview
Fetches content from URLs using wget command-line tool. Supports downloading files, reading web pages, and retrieving API responses.
Instructions
-
When user provides a URL to read or fetch:
- Validate the URL format
- Use wget with appropriate flags based on content type
-
For reading content to stdout (display):
wget -qO- "<URL>" -
For downloading files:
wget -O "<filename>" "<URL>" -
For JSON API responses:
wget -qO- --header="Accept: application/json" "<URL>" -
Common wget flags:
-q: Quiet mode (no progress output)-O-: Output to stdout-O <file>: Output to specific file--header: Add custom HTTP header--timeout=<seconds>: Set timeout--tries=<n>: Number of retries--user-agent=<agent>: Set user agent
Examples
Example: Read webpage content
Input: "Read the content from https://example.com" Command:
wget -qO- "https://example.com"
Example: Download a file
Input: "Download the file from https://example.com/data.json" Command:
wget -O "data.json" "https://example.com/data.json"
Example: Fetch API with headers
Input: "Fetch JSON from https://api.example.com/data" Command:
wget -qO- --header="Accept: application/json" "https://api.example.com/data"
Example: Download with timeout and retries
Input: "Download with 30 second timeout" Command:
wget --timeout=30 --tries=3 -O "output.txt" "<URL>"
Guidelines
- Always quote URLs to handle special characters
- Use
-qflag to suppress progress bars in scripts - For large files, consider adding
--show-progressfor user feedback - Respect robots.txt and rate limits when fetching multiple URLs
- Use
--no-check-certificateonly when necessary (self-signed certs) - For authentication, use
--userand--passwordor--header="Authorization: Bearer <token>"
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