Zhihu

Browse, search, read, and interact with Zhihu — China's largest Q&A platform.

Skill Directory

<SKILL_DIR> is the directory containing this SKILL.md file. Determine it ONCE at the start and reuse it.

Setup (run FIRST — every time, before any operation)

You MUST complete this setup before running any script. Do NOT skip this step.

sig status zhihu 2>&1

Check the JSON output fields configured and valid:

• configured: false → run Provider Setup below. Do NOT proceed without completing it.
• valid: false (but configured: true) → run sig login zhihu, then re-check.
• valid: true → detect proxy (see below), then execute the user's request.

Provider Setup

1. Read <SKILL_DIR>/references/provider-config.yaml
2. Append the provider block to ~/.sig/config.yaml under providers:
3. Ask the user: "Do you need a proxy to access this site?" — if yes, add networkProxy: <url> under the provider in config.yaml
4. Run sig login zhihu (with --network-proxy <url> if proxy was specified)
5. Verify: run sig status zhihu again — must show valid: true before proceeding

Proxy Detection (after provider is valid)

grep -A15 "^\s*zhihu:" ~/.sig/config.yaml | grep networkProxy | awk '{print $2}'

If this outputs a URL, prefix ALL python3 commands with HTTPS_PROXY=<url> HTTP_PROXY=<url>. If using socks5, convert to socks5h for python (e.g. socks5://... → socks5h://...). If empty, no proxy needed.

Running Scripts

All scripts require setup to be completed first (see above).

All operations — use sig run to inject cookie (required for all Zhihu endpoints):

sig run zhihu -- bash -c 'python3 <SKILL_DIR>/scripts/zhihu_hot.py --cookie "$SIG_ZHIHU_COOKIE" --limit 10'

Env var: SIG_ZHIHU_COOKIE

On auth error (401/403): run sig login zhihu automatically (no user prompt), then retry.

Scripts Reference

All scripts are in this skill's scripts/ directory. Run via Bash tool.

Read Operations

Script	Purpose	Auth
zhihu_hot.py	Hot list (知乎热榜)	Required
zhihu_question.py	Question answers + info	Required
zhihu_answer.py	Single answer detail	Required
zhihu_search.py	Search questions/topics/people	Required
zhihu_member.py	User profile + answers	Required
zhihu_topic.py	Search topics by keyword	Required

zhihu_hot.py

--cookie COOKIE       Zhihu session cookie (required)
--limit N             Max items (default: 50)

zhihu_question.py

--cookie COOKIE       Zhihu session cookie (required)
--id ID               Question ID (required)
--answers-limit N     Max answers to fetch (default: 10)
--sort SORT           Sort answers: "default" or "created" (default: "default")

Note: Question title and ID are extracted from the answers endpoint since Zhihu's question detail API is protected by anti-crawler measures.

zhihu_answer.py

--cookie COOKIE       Zhihu session cookie (required)
--id ID               Answer ID (required)

zhihu_search.py

--cookie COOKIE       Zhihu session cookie (required)
--query TEXT          Search query (required)
--type TYPE           Search type: "general", "topic", or "people" (default: "general")
--limit N             Max results (default: 20)

zhihu_member.py

--cookie COOKIE       Zhihu session cookie (required)
--url-token NAME      Member URL token (required)
--include-answers     Also fetch member's recent answers (flag)

zhihu_topic.py

--cookie COOKIE       Zhihu session cookie (required)
--query TEXT          Topic search query (required)
--limit N             Max results (default: 10)

Note: Direct topic detail API is protected by anti-crawler. This script searches topics by keyword instead.

Key Concepts

Questions — The core unit on Zhihu. Each question has a title, detail, and a list of answers. Found in URLs like zhihu.com/question/12345. Get from hot list or search results, then use with zhihu_question.py.

Answers — Responses to questions, ranked by votes. Each answer has content, vote count, and author info. Use zhihu_answer.py to fetch a single answer by ID.

Hot List (知乎热榜) — Zhihu's trending questions, ranked by heat score. Use zhihu_hot.py to browse.

Topics — Zhihu organizes content into topics (like tags). Examples: AI, programming, science. Use zhihu_topic.py to search topics by keyword.

Members — User profiles identified by url_token (found in URLs like zhihu.com/people/zhang-san). Use zhihu_member.py to view profile and answers.

Search — Zhihu supports searching across questions, topics, and people. Use zhihu_search.py with the --type flag to filter.

Error Handling

Error	Cause	Fix
401 Unauthorized	Session expired / no cookie	Auto-run sig login (no user prompt needed), retry
403 Forbidden	Anti-crawler or rate limit	Wait and retry, or check cookie
404 Not Found	Invalid ID	Check question/answer ID
RATE_LIMITED	Too many requests	Wait and retry

Workflow Examples

Browse hot questions

1. sig run zhihu -- bash -c 'python3 <SKILL_DIR>/scripts/zhihu_hot.py --cookie "$SIG_ZHIHU_COOKIE" --limit 10'

Read a question and its answers

1. sig run zhihu -- bash -c 'python3 <SKILL_DIR>/scripts/zhihu_question.py --cookie "$SIG_ZHIHU_COOKIE" --id 20010554 --answers-limit 5'

Search for content

1. sig run zhihu -- bash -c 'python3 <SKILL_DIR>/scripts/zhihu_search.py --cookie "$SIG_ZHIHU_COOKIE" --query "machine learning" --type general --limit 10'

View a user profile

1. sig run zhihu -- bash -c 'python3 <SKILL_DIR>/scripts/zhihu_member.py --cookie "$SIG_ZHIHU_COOKIE" --url-token zhang-san --include-answers'

Search topics

1. sig run zhihu -- bash -c 'python3 <SKILL_DIR>/scripts/zhihu_topic.py --cookie "$SIG_ZHIHU_COOKIE" --query "Python" --limit 5'