ticket-bot

Implement your own ticket bot in python.

Overview

Use this project to create your own ticket bot that sends you an email and text when tickets become available for a given event. I used this code to notify myself of when permits became available to hike Mount St. Helens. Read my blog post here for more info.

Setup

Create your python environment and install the required packages.

git clone https://github.com/blahner/ticket-bot.git
conda create -n ticket_bot python=3.10
conda activate ticket_bot
cd /your/path/to/ticket-bot
pip install -r requirements.txt

Create your config file

This config file contains sensitive information, such as email addresses and your email address password. Create a directory named 'config/config.ini' and format your config.ini file like:

[sender_email]
sender_email = youremail@emailprovider.com
password = XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX
[receiver_emails]
receiver_email1 = youremail@emailprovider.com
receiver_email2 = yourphonenumber@phoneprovider.com

Use this list of email-to-sms addresses to help you on the email-to-text part.

Running the script

If you want to get notified of specifically Mount St. Helens permit availability, you will only need to edit the run_main.sh file with your desired dates, group size, etc. and, in the project root directory, run:

./run_main.sh

You will probably want to run this in a 'screen' session and configure your computer to run this script in the background without going to sleep. Also note that ticket bot code is pretty fragile. Even a simple change to the website's html layout can break it. I likely won't keep this project up-to-date with whatever changes recreation.gov makes.

In the more likely case you want to get notified of ticket availabiltiy from a different website, you will need to make intensive edits to the main.py file. Read my blog post for an overview of how to get started.