🎧 1001 Albums Slack Bot

A simple GitHub Actions-powered bot that fetches the daily album from your 1001 Albums Generator group and posts it to a Slack channel.

Perfect for your #music channel, group listening clubs, and Slack communities of taste and style.

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💡 What It Does

• Pulls the current album from your group's JSON feed on 1001 Albums Generator
• Posts album details (name, artist, year, cover art, Wikipedia link) to a Slack channel
• Uses Slack Block Kit formatting for clean and interactive layout
• Runs daily via GitHub Actions, no server or deployment needed

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🚀 Setup Instructions

1. Clone this repo

git clone https://github.com/shellen/1001albums-slackbot.git
cd 1001albums-slackbot

2. Install dependencies (for local testing only)

npm install

3. Add a Slack App with Incoming Webhooks

1. Go to Slack API: Create an App
2. Create an app from scratch (e.g., Album Bot)
3. Enable Incoming Webhooks
4. Create a new webhook for the channel you want to post in
5. Copy the webhook URL

4. Configure GitHub Secrets

Go to your GitHub repo → Settings → Secrets → Actions → Add the following secrets:

Name	Value
SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL	Your Slack Incoming Webhook URL
GROUP_ID	Your 1001 Albums Generator group ID (e.g. my-group-name)

5. Commit and Push

Ensure the following files exist and are committed:

• index.js
• package.json (with node-fetch@2)
• .github/workflows/post-album.yml

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🧪 Testing the Bot

To test manually:

1. Go to the Actions tab of your GitHub repo
2. Click Post Album to Slack
3. Click Run workflow

You should see a Slack message with the current album from your group!

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🕒 Adjusting the Time the Album Posts

This bot uses GitHub Actions' cron syntax to schedule the post. The default schedule is:

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 15 * * *'  # Every day at 15:00 UTC (8:00 AM Pacific)

⏰ To change when your group receives the album:

1. Open .github/workflows/post-album.yml
2. Update the cron field using crontab.guru
3. Remember that GitHub Actions schedules are in UTC.

Examples:

Local Time (PST/PDT)	UTC Cron	What to use
8:00 AM Pacific	0 15 * * *	(default)
9:00 AM Eastern	0 14 * * *	14:00 UTC
7:00 AM CET	0 6 * * *	06:00 UTC

Want it at 5:30 PM your time? Use crontab.guru to convert that to UTC and update the workflow accordingly.

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🛠 Tech Stack

• Node.js (CommonJS, node-fetch@2)
• GitHub Actions for scheduling and automation
• Slack Incoming Webhooks (via Slack App)
• Uses the currentAlbum field from 1001 Albums Generator group JSON API
• Slack Block Kit for modern message formatting

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💬 Example Slack Message

📻 1001 Albums Pick of the Day

🎧 Today's album: Are You Experienced by Jimi Hendrix (1967)

🖼️ [Album cover displayed here]

[ 🎵 Listen & Rate ] [ 📖 Wikipedia ]

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🧼 Future Ideas

• Support multiple groups / channels
• Add rich Slack blocks or @mentions
• Retry logic for API failure
• GitHub badge for "Now Playing" in README

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📄 License

MIT — feel free to fork and remix!

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🙌 Thanks

• 1001 Albums Generator for their awesome service
• Slack team for making integrations still kinda fun