Webscrape & Slack Notification Bot

This guide will walk you through the steps to scrape HackerNews and send data to a given Slack channel of your choice.

Features

• Fetches top Hacker News stories
• Schedule for your app to run at fixed time intervals. E.g., "Run every Tuesday at 3:00 PM"

Step 1: Fork the template

Login to Replit and then fork the Hacker news webscraper template by selecting the + Use Template button at the top right of the page. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the process and create your Repl.

Step 2: Create the Slack Bot in the Slack developer portal

Follow the instructions below to create and install a Slack app into your Slack workspace:

1. Navigate to Your Apps page and select Create an App.
2. Choose From an app manifest from the options.
3. Select a Workspace from the dropdown menu and then select Next.
4. Replace the JSON content with the content of the manifest.json file, then select Next.
5. Review and configure your OAuth permissions, Features, and Settings, then select Create.
6. Select Install the App.

Note: You might need to request approval to install the App based on your organization's policies.

Step 3: Get tokens from Slack developer portal

Follow these instructions to obtain the necessary tokens:

1. SLACK_BOT_TOKEN: Navigate to your Slack App; in the left nav, look for Settings -> Install App, you'll find OAuth Tokens for Your Workspace. Copy the Bot User OAuth Token value and use it in your Repl to update the SLACK_BOT_TOKEN Secret key.
2. SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET: On your Slack App page, in the left nav, look for Settings -> Basic Information. In the App Credentials section, look for Signing Secret and use it in your Repl to update the SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET Secret key.
3. SLACK_APP_TOKEN On your Slack App page, in the left nav, look for Settings -> Basic Information. In the App-Level Tokens section, select Generate Token and Scopes. Add a token name of your choice and select Add Scope. Select the permissions and Generate. Now, copy the token and use it in your Repl to update the SLACK_APP_TOKEN Secret key.

Save all of these secrets to Replit by opening the "Secrets" tab in the Replit Workspace and pasting the values in.

Step 4: Configure your App

To configure your App for Slack integration, follow the instructions below:

1. Navigate to your Slack profile, select your profile picture, and use the ellipsis menu next to View as to select the Copy member ID. You'll use this ID to replace the value for ALERT_UIDS.
2. Get back to your repl created from Step 1, navigate to the app.py file, and locate the following lines:

   KEYWORDS = ["h"]
   ALERT_UIDS = ["U06C34217C5"]
   # max 500
   NUM_TOP_STORIES = 25
3. Replace the value for ALERT_UIDS with your Slack member ID that was copied earlier and adjust KEYWORDS and NUM_TOP_STORIES based on your preferences.
4. Save the changes and select Run.

Step 4: Deploy your App

In the Workspace header, select the Deploy button. From the available types of Deployment, choose Scheduled Deployments. Then, select the Set up your deployment button. Add your schedule and select Deploy to deploy your application.

Your App will be deployed and will automatically run at your scheduled time.

Further customization

• Expand functionality by adding more keywords or refining matching criteria.
• Personalize the alert message format or include additional information.
• Enhance error handling or implement logging as needed.
• Summarize the articles using GPT-4.