wxtext

This is the code which powers my Weather by Text service. The backend code is written in Python and uses the following services:

• Twilio for text/SMS messaging (requests and responses)
• HERE for geocoding (converting from place names into lat/long coordinates)
• DarkSky for providing weather forecast data from lat/long coordinates

Image credit: Flickr

Setup

The code has been updated to run on Python 3.7.5. I'm running on a shared web host where I don't have sudo, so I'm not using any libraries beyond what's normally present in a 3.7 system.

You'll need to sign for free developer accounts on HERE and DarkSky, then set up these environment variables:

• HERE_APP_ID
• HERE_APP_CODE
• DARKSKY_SECRET
• SLACK_WEBHOOK (optional)

(If you're using Slack, the webhook can be used to drop a simple message each time someone makes a request.)

On your webhost:

1. Copy or clone the Python files from this repo into a path reachable from your web server
2. Make the local ./logs directory and make sure its writeable by the web server process (on my system I just set it to 777 writeable by everyone)
3. Test that everything is set up by running python wxtext.py - this will run a few locations through both the geocoding and weather APIs

Finally, in Twilio buy a number (or use one you already have) and configure it to do an HTTP POST to the wxtwilio.py file on your own web host for any incoming messages.

To Do

• Improve error handling everywhere, especially if location is not found (make sure always respond to a request from user)
• Switch from DarkSky to another weather API now that Apple is shutting them down (maybe OpenWeather)
• Improve the forecast response with more details like general conditions (sunny, cloudy, etc)
• Add support for HELP query
• Add better international support including units, look at using city/country code coming with Twilio request to see if those are useful
• Add requests caching
• Look at hosting on AWS Lambda w/API Gateway rather than requiring a separate web host
• Better handling for cases where >1 location may be found, give user a choice
• Future support for forecast in addition to current conditions
• Validate that webhooks are coming from Twilio by inspecting signature