- Vercel Functions for cron processes & event subscriptions via webhooks
- Vercel Cron Jobs for triggering cron processes.
- Hacker News API for pulling data
- Slack API for sending and unfurling messages
- Upstash for key-value storage (Redis).
- Set up a Vercel cron job that pings our
/api/cron
endpoint once every 60 seconds. - Get the last checked HN post ID (
lastCheckedId
) and the list ofkeywords
to check against from Upstash. - Get the
latestPostId
using HN API'smaxitem
endpoint. Then, perform checks against each post betweenlastCheckedId
andlatestPostId
to see if they contain any of the delineatedkeywords
. - For each positive post, send its link to Slack using the
chat.postMessage
method. - Listen to the
link_shared
event at our/api/event
endpoint. Once an event occurs, send a POST request to Slack to unfurl the link using the chat.unfurl method.
![Slacker Overview](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/28986134/221011121-c6f368b6-cbff-4b67-a0ee-ffc7986d9add.png)
Here's a 60s video that walks you through the installation process, step-by-step.
You can click the button below to install the bot directly into your desired Slack workspace:
Once it's installed, create a channel to receive notifications in and start configuring the bot with the /configure
command.
You can also deploy your own version of this bot using Vercel and Upstash. Note that while this is in early-access, some of these processes might change.
Prefer a video tutorial instead? Watch this video.
- Navigate to api.slack.com/apps and click on "Create New App".
- Select "From scratch" and input
Hacker News Bot
as the name of your app. - Voilà! You've just created your Slack app. Here, you'll receive 3 values that will be used for your Vercel deployment in the next step:
- Client ID: This is your App's unique public-facing ID that will be the value for the
NEXT_PUBLIC_SLACK_CLIENT_ID
env var. - Signing Secret: This is the signing secret used to validate that requests are genuinely coming from Slack. It will be the value for the
SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET
env var. - Verification Token: This is the verification token used to validate that requests are genuinely coming from Slack. It will be the value for the
SLACK_VERIFICATION_TOKEN
env var.
- Client ID: This is your App's unique public-facing ID that will be the value for the
Go to console.upstash.com and create an account. You'll need it for the next step.
You can deploy your bot to Vercel with one-click:
Be sure to include all 5 of the env vars above in your deployment.
When the project finishes deploying, get your project's domain (e.g. https://slacker-eight.vercel.app/
). You'll need it for the next step.
For your Slack app to be able to send/unfurl messages in your Slack workspace, we will need to configure a few things:
-
From your Slack app home screen, select "OAuth & Permissions" from the sidebar (under "Features").
-
Scroll down to "Scopes", and add the following scopes under "Bot Token Scopes":
chat:write
chat:write.public
links:read
links:write
- Now, select "Event Subscriptions" from the sidebar (under "Features").
- Toggle "Enable Events" to "ON".
- For the "Request URL" field, input your Vercel project's domain and append
/api/event
to it. The final URL should look something likehttps://slacker-eight.vercel.app/api/event
. - Scroll down to "Subscribe to bot events". Add the
link_shared
bot user event. - Do the same for `Subscribe to events on behalf of users".
- Under "App unfurl domains", add
news.ycombinator.com
. - Click on "Save Changes".
Select "Slash Commands" from the sidebar (under "Features"). Create the following commmand with its respective Request URLs (based on your Vercel project's domain):
- Command:
/configure
- Request URL:
https://[YOUR_VERCEL_PROJECT_DOMAIN]/api/cmd/configure
- Short Description: Configure your HN Slack Bot
- Now, select "Interactivity & Shortcuts" from the sidebar (under "Features").
- Toggle "Interactivity" to "ON".
- For the "Request URL" field, input your Vercel project's domain and append
/api/response
to it. The final URL should look something likehttps://slacker-eight.vercel.app/api/response
. - Click on "Save Changes".
- Go to "Basic Information" (under "Settings").
- Under "Install your app", click on "Install to Workspace".
- You should receive a notification that your app has been installed in your Slack workspace.
- Go back to "OAuth & Permissions". Copy the value of "Bot User OAuth Token".
- Set it as the
SLACK_OAUTH_TOKEN
env var in your Vercel project. Here's a guide on how to do that. - Redeploy your Vercel project for the changes to take effect.
- To verify that this worked, go to any channel on your Slack workspace and send a Hacker News link. The link should now unfurl and show a nice preview (like the one above).
This project was originally created by Steven Tey at Vercel, with contributions/feedback from:
- Guillermo Rauch (@rauchg) – Vercel
- Justin Ridgewell (@jridgewell) – Vercel
- Andrew Healey (@healeycodes) – Vercel
- Drew Bredvick (@dbredvick) – Vercel
- Lee Robinson (@leeerob) – Vercel
- Andreas Thomas (@chronarkdotdev) – Upstash
The MIT License.