Get live scores, schedules, and standings for major leagues with zero API keys — ESPN's public JSON endpoints via curl, covering NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and world football. Use when asked what's the score, did my team win, today's games, or league standings right now. Produces the scores with game state (live/final/scheduled), the asked-team answer first, and the rerunnable command — with the unofficial-API caveat stated.
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Use sports-scores to get the current result or schedule for [team or league] for [game/date] in [time zone], with game state, fetch time for live results, and the rerunnable command plus ESPN public-feed caveat.
Required inputs
[team or league]
[game/date]
[time zone]
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SKILL.md
name: sports-scoresdescription: "Get live scores, schedules, and standings for major leagues with zero API keys — ESPN's public JSON endpoints via curl, covering NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and world football. Use when asked what's the score, did my team win, today's games, or league standings right now. Produces the scores with game state (live/final/scheduled), the asked-team answer first, and the rerunnable command — with the unofficial-API caveat stated."
Sports Scores Skill
"Did we win?" is a live-data question with a keyless answer: ESPN serves structured JSON scoreboards for every major league over plain HTTPS — no key, no signup. The endpoints are unofficial (publicly accessible but undocumented, and they occasionally reshape), so this skill pairs them with the discipline that makes unofficial sources usable: state the source, expect drift, and never present a stale scoreboard as live.
What This Skill Produces
The answer — the asked team's score/result first, with game state (live Q3, final, starts 19:30 local)
The slate — today's games for a league when that's the question
Standings/schedule — where the endpoints serve them
The command — exact curl, rerunnable, with the unofficial caveat
Required Inputs
Ask for these if not provided:
Team or league — resolve nicknames ("the Niners" → San Francisco 49ers, NFL); ambiguous city names ("New York") get asked
Which game — today's default; "did they win" on an off-day means the most recent game — say which game is being answered
Time zone — game times convert to the user's local
Framework: The Endpoint Map and the Discipline
Scoreboards:curl -s "https://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/{sport}/{league}/scoreboard" — pairs: football/nfl, basketball/nba, baseball/mlb, hockey/nhl, basketball/wnba, football/college-football, soccer/eng.1 (Premier League; other comps: esp.1, ita.1, ger.1, uefa.champions, usa.1). Add ?dates=YYYYMMDD for a specific day. Each event: competitions[0].competitors[] (team.displayName, score, homeAway), status.type (state: pre/in/post, detail: "Final", "End of 3rd").
Teams and standings:.../{sport}/{league}/teams for the id map · .../{sport}/{league}/standings where available · a team's schedule: .../teams/{id}/schedule.
State is part of the score: "Lakers 98–95" means opposite things live-in-Q4 vs. final — the state string accompanies every score, and live answers carry their fetch time ("as of 21:42 — game in progress").
The nickname resolution step: fetch the teams list once when unsure rather than guessing which "Rangers" (NHL? MLB? Scottish football?) — the wrong-team answer is this domain's cardinal sin.
The unofficial-source honesty: these endpoints are publicly served but undocumented — they can reshape or vanish without notice. Say "via ESPN's public feed" in the answer; on a failed or weird response, report that rather than improvising a score. Never answer scores from memory — training-data scores are, by definition, old games.
Output Format
[Team/League]: [the game]
[The direct answer: "49ers won 27–20 (final, last night)" or "Down 95–98, 4:12 left in the 4th — as of 21:42."]
Matchup
Score
State
Time (local)
[The slate, when a league day was asked]
Source: ESPN public feed (unofficial) · as of [fetch time] · rerun: [exact curl]
Quality Checks
The asked team's result leads; the slate follows
Every score carries its game state, and live scores their fetch time
Nicknames/cities resolved to the right team, asked about when ambiguous
Game times converted to the user's zone
The unofficial-source line appears
Anti-Patterns
Do not answer scores from memory — every remembered score is an old score
Do not present a live score without its clock state and fetch time
Do not guess between same-name teams — resolve or ask
Do not improvise when the endpoint reshapes — report and hand over the command
Do not editorialize outcomes ("embarrassing loss") — the user's team just lost; read the room, give the facts