Hacker News Alerts#

screenshot of the web dashboard

A Slack bot that tracks when you make it to the front page of Hacker News, made with 💖 @ Hack Club

🚀 Features#

Front Page Tracking: Get notified when your posts reach the Hacker News front page
#1 Post Alerts: Special notifications when your post reaches the coveted #1 position
Leaderboard History: Track how your posts perform over time with rank and point history
Web Dashboard: View all currently tracked stories and their stats
Individual Story Pages: View detailed information about any story using HN-compatible URLs
User Verification: Securely link your HN account with Slack using verification phrases

🚧 Development Setup#

Prerequisites#

Bun (JavaScript runtime and package manager)
PostgreSQL database
Ngrok for local development with Slack

Local Development#

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/taciturnaxolotl/hn-alerts.git
cd hn-alerts

Install dependencies:

bun install

Create a .env file with the following variables:

SLACK_BOT_TOKEN="xoxb-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx"
SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET="xxxxx"
SLACK_CHANNEL="C08KX2YNN87"
NODE_ENV="dev"
SENTRY_DSN="https://xxxxxx@xxxxxx.ingest.us.sentry.io/xxxx"
DATABASE_URL="postgres://user:password@host:5432/table_name"

Initialize the database schema:

bun db:push

Start the development server:

bun dev

In a separate terminal, launch ngrok to expose your local server:

bun ngrok

Update your Slack app's manifest in manifest.dev.yaml to point to your ngrok URL

📱 Slack Commands#

/hn-alerts-link your_username - Link your Hacker News account
/hn-alerts-link verify - Verify your Hacker News account
/hn-alerts-link unlink - Remove your linked account
/hn-alerts-link help - Show command help

🧰 Tech Stack#

Bun - JavaScript runtime and package manager
Slack Edge - Slack API client
Drizzle ORM - Database ORM
Sentry - Error tracking
Cron - Scheduled tasks

📜 License#

The code is licensed under MIT! See the LICENSE.md file for more details.

Clone this repository