# Ping

> When the user writes "/ping" anywhere in a message, notify them on Discord once the specific task described in that same message is genuinely complete (or blocked/failed) — not before, and not for any other task. On first use ever, walks the user through one-time Discord webhook setup before sending anything. Use only when "/ping" literally appears in the user's message; never invoke proactively or for tasks that didn't ask for it.

- Skill: `rileytherex/ping` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add rileytherex/ping`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/rileytherex/ping/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Integrations & APIs
- Author: RileyTheRex (https://skillmd.com/u/rileytherex)
- Updated: 2026-09-22
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/rileytherex/ping

---


# Discord ping

Sends a Discord notification when a task the user tagged with `/ping` is
done. Opt-in and per-message only — this is not a standing "notify me for
everything" mode.

## First-time setup (only runs once, ever)

Before sending anything, check whether `~/.claude/notify-skills/config.json`
exists and has a `ping.webhook_url` value.

- **If it already exists**, skip straight to [Trigger](#trigger) — setup is
  done, just use the saved webhook.
- **If it doesn't exist yet**, this is the first time `/ping` has been used.
  Stop and do setup before doing anything else with the task in this
  message:

  1. Tell the user this is a one-time setup step for `/ping`.
  2. Explain how to create a Discord webhook, if they don't already have
     one:
     - Open Discord, go to the server and channel they want pings posted
       to.
     - Channel Settings (gear icon) → Integrations → Webhooks → New
       Webhook.
     - Name it whatever they like, click **Copy Webhook URL**.
  3. Ask them to paste that webhook URL.
  4. Ask (optional) whether they want a specific person `@mentioned` in
     every ping — if so, ask for that Discord **user ID** (right-click
     their name with Developer Mode on → Copy User ID). This can be
     skipped; pings still work without a mention.
  5. Save the answer(s) to `~/.claude/notify-skills/config.json`:

     ```json
     {
       "ping": {
         "webhook_url": "https://discord.com/api/webhooks/....",
         "mention_id": "123456789012345678"
       }
     }
     ```

     If the file already exists (e.g. `ding` already set up its own
     section), merge into it rather than overwriting other keys. Create
     the `~/.claude/notify-skills/` directory first if needed.
  6. Confirm setup is complete, then proceed with the actual task from the
     user's message as normal.

Never commit or print the webhook URL anywhere other than this local config
file — it's a bearer credential; anyone with the URL can post to that
channel.

## Trigger

Only act on this skill when the literal text `/ping` appears somewhere in
the user's message — it doesn't have to be the first word, e.g. "Build the
retry logic and /ping once it's ready for me to test" is a valid trigger.
If `/ping` is not present, do not send anything, no matter how long or
important the task is.

## Scope: exactly the task in that message, exactly once

`/ping` applies only to the specific task described in the same message it
appears in — not to unrelated later tasks in the conversation, and not to
every sub-step along the way. Read the message for what "done" means to the
user:

- If they give a specific milestone ("/ping once this is ready for me to
  test", "/ping when the build finishes"), that milestone is the completion
  condition — not full task completion, not intermediate progress, not each
  file edit or each background command. Ping exactly when that milestone is
  reached.
- If they don't specify a milestone (just "/ping" attached to a task), the
  completion condition is the task actually being done — including waiting
  out any background jobs it spawns and knowing the real result, not just
  having handed it off to the background.

Fire **at most one ping** for that task. Do not ping on intermediate
progress, partial completion, or for other tasks that didn't include
`/ping` in their own message.

## Sending the ping

Read the webhook URL (and optional `mention_id`) from
`~/.claude/notify-skills/config.json`.

**Content must be plain ASCII only** — no em dashes (—), smart quotes, or
other non-ASCII punctuation. Piping a curl `-d` JSON body containing
non-ASCII characters through Git Bash can mangle the UTF-8 encoding and
Discord will reject it with `{"message": "The request body contains
invalid JSON.", "code": 50109}` — silently, unless you check the response
body. Use a hyphen `-` instead of an em dash, and avoid curly quotes.

If a `mention_id` is set, prefix the content with `<@mention_id>`. If not,
just send the content without a mention.

```bash
WEBHOOK_URL="<from config.json>"
MENTION="<@mention_id or blank>"
curl -s -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{\"content\": \"$MENTION Task complete: **<short task name>** - <one-line result summary>\"}" \
  "$WEBHOOK_URL"
```

Don't add `-o /dev/null` — check the actual response. A successful post
returns nothing (empty body); anything printed back is an error worth
reading, not ignoring.

PowerShell form (handles UTF-8 explicitly, safe even with non-ASCII
content if that's ever needed):

```powershell
$config = Get-Content "$HOME\.claude\notify-skills\config.json" | ConvertFrom-Json
$mention = if ($config.ping.mention_id) { "<@$($config.ping.mention_id)> " } else { "" }
$body = @{ content = "$mention Task complete: **<short task name>** - <summary>" } | ConvertTo-Json -Compress
Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $config.ping.webhook_url -Method Post -ContentType "application/json; charset=utf-8" -Body ([System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes($body))
```

Replace `<short task name>` with a plain-language label and the summary
with a short factual result (e.g. "ready to test" or "blocked - needs a
decision on X"). Keep the whole message under ~300 characters — Discord
mobile notifications truncate long text.

Still give the normal in-chat response too — the Discord ping is in
addition to, not instead of, telling the user directly in the
conversation.

If the user ever wants pings routed to a different Discord channel, just
update `~/.claude/notify-skills/config.json` directly (or delete the
`ping` key to trigger setup again next time `/ping` is used).