yc-reader

name

yc-reader

description

Look up Y Combinator companies, batches, and startup ecosystem data using the yc-oss API (read-only). Use this skill whenever the user wants to research YC-backed startups, find companies in a specific batch or industry, check which YC companies are hiring, explore top YC companies, or analyze startup trends by sector or tag. Triggers include: "YC companies in fintech", "who's in the latest YC batch", "YC startups hiring", "top Y Combinator companies", "find YC companies tagged AI", "W25 batch", "S24 companies", "YC stats", "Y Combinator portfolio", "startup research", "which YC companies do X", "venture research on YC", any mention of Y Combinator, YC batch, or YC-backed companies in the context of startup research, venture analysis, or market intelligence. This is a read-only data source — the API is a static JSON dataset updated daily.

Y Combinator Reader (Read-Only)

Fetches Y Combinator company data from the yc-oss/api, an unofficial open-source API that indexes all publicly launched YC companies. The data is sourced from YC's Algolia search index and updated daily via GitHub Actions.

This is a read-only data source. It provides company profiles, batch listings, industry/tag breakdowns, hiring status, and diversity data. No write operations exist — the API serves static JSON files.

No authentication required. The API is public and free. Just use curl to fetch JSON endpoints.

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Step 1: Verify Prerequisites

This skill only needs curl (to fetch data) and jq (to parse/filter JSON). Both are pre-installed on most systems.

!`(command -v curl > /dev/null && echo "CURL_OK" || echo "CURL_MISSING") && (command -v jq > /dev/null && echo "JQ_OK" || echo "JQ_MISSING")`

If JQ_MISSING, install it:

# macOS
brew install jq


 apt-get install jq