Add to your Codex MCP config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "playwright": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@playwright/mcp@latest"]
    }
  }
}

Credentials Setup

Credentials come from environment variables. Before using this skill, ensure these are set:

One-time setup:

Add:

HN_USERNAME=your_hn_username
HN_PASSWORD=your_hn_password

If the env vars are not set, ask the user for their HN credentials before proceeding. Do NOT hardcode credentials anywhere.

Inputs

You need two things from the user:

If either is unclear, ask the user before proceeding.

Read HN_USERNAME and HN_PASSWORD from environment:

echo $HN_USERNAME
echo $HN_PASSWORD

If blank, check for a .socials file:

grep -E "^HN_(USERNAME|PASSWORD)=" .socials 2>/dev/null

If still not found, ask the user to provide them.

Navigate to https://news.ycombinator.com/login
Take a snapshot to confirm the login form is present
Fill in the acct field with the username
Fill in the pw field with the password
Click the login button (<input type="submit" value="login">)
Take a snapshot to verify login succeeded — the username should appear in the top nav bar. If login failed, stop and tell the user.

Navigate to https://news.ycombinator.com/submit
Take a snapshot to confirm the submit form is present
Fill in the title field with the submission title
Fill in the url field with the URL (leave text blank — per HN guidelines, text is optional when a URL is provided)
Click the submit button
Take a snapshot to verify submission succeeded

After submission, tell the user:

Already submitted: HN will say "You have already submitted this link." — report this and provide the existing thread URL if shown.
Rate limited: HN may say you're submitting too fast. Tell the user to wait a few minutes.
Login failure: Stop immediately, report the error, ask the user to verify credentials.
Form not found: Take a screenshot and report what the page shows instead.

HN has a rate limit — don't submit the same URL twice.
Leave the text field blank when posting a URL (per HN norms).
Titles should match the actual article title; avoid editorializing per HN community guidelines.
After submitting, the post may not appear on the front page immediately — that's normal, ranking is based on votes and time.