Silently check today's NYT Wordle answer on startup

Queries the NYT wordle/v2 endpoint once per calendar day (cached via
~/.wordle_solver/state.json) and adds the word via the existing
/addword mechanism if it's missing from answers.txt. Fully silent in
every outcome; --no-nyt-check / --force-nyt-check control it from the
CLI.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Ert8f6E6yzmWg5qbcFPDLP

wordle_solver/cli.py

@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ import random
 from collections import Counter
 
 from .game import Clue, score_guess, str_to_pattern
+from .nyt_check import maybe_check_nyt_word
 from .solver import MAX_GUESSES, WORD_LEN, Solver, rank_guesses
 from .wager import Wager
 from .words import add_answer_word, load_answers, load_extra_guesses
@@ -155,6 +156,11 @@ def run(args=None):
                          help="weight on per-position letter frequency (default: 1.0)")
     parser.add_argument("--presence-weight", type=float, default=1.0,
                          help="weight on overall letter presence frequency (default: 1.0)")
+    nyt_group = parser.add_mutually_exclusive_group()
+    nyt_group.add_argument("--no-nyt-check", action="store_true",
+                            help="skip the automatic check of today's NYT Wordle answer")
+    nyt_group.add_argument("--force-nyt-check", action="store_true",
+                            help="check today's NYT Wordle answer even if already checked today")
     opts = parser.parse_args(args)
 
     answers = load_answers()
@@ -163,6 +169,8 @@ def run(args=None):
     wager = Wager()
     state = {"secret": None, "guesses_made": 0}
 
+    maybe_check_nyt_word(solver, skip=opts.no_nyt_check, force=opts.force_nyt_check)
+
     print("Wordle hard-mode assistant. Type 'help' for instructions.")
     print(f"Wager prices: {wager.prices_str()}")
     print_suggestions(solver, opts.top, opts.position_weight, opts.presence_weight)

wordle_solver/nyt_check.py

@@ -0,0 +1,83 @@
+"""Silent, once-a-day check of the NYT Wordle answer against our word list.
+
+NYT's `svc/wordle/v2` endpoint discloses the solution for a given date as
+soon as the local calendar rolls to that date. On startup we check today's
+date once per day and add the word via the same mechanism as `/addword` if
+it's missing from `answers.txt`. Never prints anything and never raises —
+failures are silently ignored and retried on the next run.
+"""
+
+import json
+import urllib.request
+from datetime import date
+from pathlib import Path
+
+from .game import score_guess
+from .solver import WORD_LEN, Solver
+from .words import DATA_DIR, add_answer_word
+
+STATE_PATH = Path.home() / ".wordle_solver" / "state.json"
+NYT_URL_TEMPLATE = "https://www.nytimes.com/svc/wordle/v2/{date}.json"
+REQUEST_TIMEOUT = 3
+
+
+def get_state_path() -> Path:
+    return STATE_PATH
+
+
+def load_state(state_path: Path = STATE_PATH) -> dict:
+    try:
+        return json.loads(state_path.read_text())
+    except (OSError, ValueError):
+        return {}
+
+
+def save_state(state: dict, state_path: Path = STATE_PATH) -> None:
+    state_path.parent.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
+    state_path.write_text(json.dumps(state))
+
+
+def fetch_todays_answer() -> str | None:
+    url = NYT_URL_TEMPLATE.format(date=date.today().isoformat())
+    try:
+        with urllib.request.urlopen(url, timeout=REQUEST_TIMEOUT) as resp:
+            body = json.loads(resp.read())
+        word = body["solution"].strip().lower()
+    except Exception:
+        return None
+    if len(word) != WORD_LEN or not word.isalpha():
+        return None
+    return word
+
+
+def maybe_check_nyt_word(solver: Solver, data_dir: Path = DATA_DIR,
+                          state_path: Path = STATE_PATH,
+                          skip: bool = False, force: bool = False) -> str | None:
+    if skip:
+        return None
+
+    today = date.today().isoformat()
+    state = load_state(state_path)
+    if not force and state.get("last_checked") == today:
+        return None
+
+    word = fetch_todays_answer()
+    if word is None:
+        return None
+
+    state["last_checked"] = today
+    save_state(state, state_path)
+
+    if word in solver.answers:
+        return None
+
+    result = add_answer_word(word, data_dir)
+    solver.answers.append(word)
+    solver.answers.sort()
+    if result["removed_from_guesses"]:
+        solver.extra_guesses.remove(word)
+
+    if all(score_guess(rec.guess, word) == rec.pattern for rec in solver.history):
+        solver.candidates.append(word)
+
+    return word