Ask HN: What automation tools have you used to replace mundane activities?

Re:Ask HN: What automation tools have you used to replace mu... by bluehatbrit on Monday February 17, 2020 @08:13AM (#22347412)

I posted the same thing on a similar thread yesterday but if you're looking to build some scrapers and listeners and make it easy for yourself I'd highly recommend Huginn (https://github.com/huginn/huginn). I set it up a few months back and I've been using it to scrape all sorts of info and alert me on things. IE:

* A change in GBP -> NOK exchange rate, to indicate if it's a good time to buy ready for my next trip to Norway.

* Alerts on flight prices to help me purchase flights when they're at their cheapest.

* Daily digest email with content I'm interested in from HN and some web comics.

* A summary of new content coming into my RSS reader.

It works really well for this sort of stuff and I found it fairly easy to get up and running.

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Re:Ask HN: What automation tools have you used to replace mu... by mark_l_watson on Monday February 17, 2020 @09:34AM (#22347928)

Thanks for the link! huginn looks cool and useful (good combination!). Impressive work by 179 contributors.

I have had numerous simpler projects automating my digital life but I made the (probable) mistake of always starting from scratch and writing stuff all on my own.

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Re:Ask HN: What automation tools have you used to replace mu... by bluehatbrit on Monday February 17, 2020 @11:11AM (#22348649)

I was in a similar boat but refused to build my own system. Huginn was a perfect solution for me and I really enjoy using it. You can write your own agents if you need to but I haven't had to so far.

Since I set it up a few months ago I've been using it a bunch, it's event driven system is great for when you want to trigger off multiple streams half way through a flow. You can also go back through past events if you want which is really powerful.

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Re:Ask HN: What automation tools have you used to replace mu... by iKlsR on Monday February 17, 2020 @09:16AM (#22347810)

I found this last night and I'm already looking at replacing/extending my existing setup with it. Thanks for the share!

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Re:Ask HN: What automation tools have you used to replace mu... by bluehatbrit on Monday February 17, 2020 @11:13AM (#22348661)

Nice! It didn't take me too long to setup with docker-compose on a cheap Digital Ocean instance. I'd suggest reading through all the options and toggles provided by environment variables though. There were quite a few I didn't find for a few weeks which proved to be important or useful and they're not explained in the docs all that well. Aside from that, I've not had any teething issues really.

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