🤖 nvim-TWiN-bot

In testing!

Currently this only works in this testing subreddit, so don't try to call it in r/neovim

Description

A Reddit bot to help r/neovim users to contribute to This Week in Neovim (Github)

Why this bot

This bot replies to calls (e.g. !twinbot) by a Redditor that sees a post in r/neovim they think is newsworthy with links and templates to help make a pull request in the latest TWiN contents branch. The hope is that by seeing how simple the template is and how clear the PR guidelines are, Redditors will be encouraged to help contribute to TWiN rather than leaving it all up to the repo maintainer.

Usage

Reply to any post in r/neovim with any of the following:

!twinbot-core
!twinbot-help
!twinbot-guides
!twinbot-new
!twinbot-update
!twinbot

The bot will respond to any call with helpful links, and if a flag is added to the call (e.g. -new), a tag will be added to the message with a link to a specific template.

However, if the bot finds a PR in the latest branch of TWiN that contains a repo mentioned in the original Reddit submission, the bot will suggest that a TWiN PR may have already been created. We do this to hedge against duplicate PRs and also as a way to say thanks to whoever made the PR (likely the OP).

Structure of the program

Using the Reddit Python API Wrapper, we create an instance of r/neovim and loop over the comment stream, checking any new commment. At the top of each loop:

Instantiate a DateHandler object that helps us with all the datetime related functions: given the Unix timestamp of last_sunday(), what is the name of the latest_branch going to be in format %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S?
Instantiate a Logger object that reads a .json file containing any previous replies by the bot into memory. The .json log's role in the execution of the program is to prevent duplicate replies by the bot in the same thread (though it's unlikely that two people would call it the bot in the same thread)
If the current comment in the stream is a) older than last Sunday (UTC), b) a child of a post that the bot has already replied to, or c) lacking a valid bot_call, continues on to the next comment in the stream loop
Else, get all the pr_urls of any PR in the coming week's TWiN branch that contain a link to a repo potentially mentioned in the Reddit post
If there is no such link, provide all the boilerplate links and a link to a template corresponding to the category flag (if there is one). Since the DateHandler object helped determine the link to the current branch, we can make sure the links point to that branch, with the hope the bot is doing its part to help prevent PRs to main.
Else, reply with a thank_you message to the Redditor that called the bot, and mention that a PR for the post they are referencing seems to be open already
Log the reply and all the relevant data (id of the OP's post, commend id, the type of reply, and a reference number of the PR if one was found) in the .json file

TODO

Automate deleting any subdirectories in json/ that are x weeks old (probably four?)
Log some additional useful info (e.g., using inclusive and exclusive keywords, we can log all the Reddit posts from this week that might be good candidates for a PR)
Write some scripts to help parse the logs for useful information (e.g., filter all the submissions that already have a PR, or vice versa)

al-ce / nvim-twin-bot