🌲 EvergreenUpdates

A simple desktop tool enabled by AI that scans websites for news articles and compiles them into a CSV. Built for policy teams who need to monitor large numbers of stakeholder sites without manual checking.

What It Does

Enter a list of URLs and the tool will scan each one for news articles, collecting the title, link, date published, date retrieved, and source URL into a single CSV file.

Requirements

To use this tool you will need:

• Python 3.10 or newer
• A Google API key (see Getting an API Key below)
• A PEM certificate file (for secure connections to your organization's network, see Contact for support if you work for NRCan)

Getting Started

Option 1: Run the Executable (Recommended)

1. Download the latest EvergreenUpdates.exe from the Releases page
2. Double-click to open
3. Enter your Google API key, the path to your .pem certificate, and your list of URLs (one per line)
4. Click Run - your CSV will be saved to the same folder as the executable

Option 2: Run the Python Script

1. Clone this repository

2. Create and activate a virtual environment:

   Windows

   python -m venv .venv
   .venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

   macOS / Linux

   python -m venv .venv
   source .venv/bin/activate

3. Install dependencies

   pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Run the script:

   python src/scraper.py

Getting an API Key

This tool uses the Google API for article discovery. To get a free API key:

1. Go to https://aistudio.google.com/api-keys
2. Sign in with your Google account
3. Click Create API key
4. Copy the key and paste it into the app when prompted

Output

The tool produces a CSV file named news_results.csv by default — you can change this in the UI before running. It contains the following columns:

Column	Description
title	Article headline
url	URL to the article
published_date	Date the article was published
retrieved_on	Date the tool found the article
source_url	The website URL you provided

As with all AI generated content, please be aware that the results may be inaccurate.

Notes

• URLs should be entered one per line in the text box
• The tool works best with news and press release pages rather than homepages
• Your API key and certificate path are never saved or transmitted

Contact

Valerie Gies @ valerie.gies@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca