observe

:mag: Observe a website and get an e-mail if something changes.

Example

Let's assume you want to get notified when a website for an event has been updated. After creating or re-using a settings.yml file, you can start an observation like so:

$ observe website https://example-event.com .

That's it! You'll get notified via e-mail as soon as something changes.

Installation

Linux/macOS: Download the latest release and move the binary into a directory like /usr/local/bin. Make sure the directory is in your PATH.

Windows: Download the latest release, create a directory like C:\Program Files\observe and copy the executable into it. Add the directory to Path.

Docker: Run docker image pull dominikbraun/observe to get the Docker image.

Getting started

Prerequisites

Since observe uses SendGrid to send e-mails, you just have to create a free account and create an API key. After that, create a settings.yml file in a directory of your choice and fill in appropriate data.

mail:
  from: [email protected]
  to: [email protected]
sendgrid:
  key: My-API-Key

If your mail provider does not allow from being the same address as to for security reasons, you may use a fake address or your second e-mail address as sender.

Starting an observation

Linux/macOS/Windows: Let's start an observation that checks the website every 10 seconds, where . is the path to your settings file:

$ observe website --interval 10 https://example.com .

Docker: Mount the directory that contains your settings.yml file onto the container.

$ docker container run -v /path/to/settings:/settings dominikbraun/observe website --interval 10 https://example.com .

You can run any observe sub-command by appending it to the image name.

Disclaimer

I don't take any responsibility for misuse of this tool, even though the lookup interval is limited to 1 second.