php-skeetbot/skeetbot-template

getting started

first things first

• clone this repository use this template
• create a Bluesky account for your bot, e.g under https://bsky.app/settings -> add account
• switch to the bot account and create a new app password https://bsky.app/settings/app-passwords
• copy /.config/.env_example to /.config/.env (for local test, do not upload the .env to GitHub!)
  • copy the app password and save it in the .env as BLUESKY_APP_PW, go to the repository settings on GitHub under {repo_url}/settings/secrets/actions and save it there too (not necessary if you plan to run the bot on your own webserver)
  • copy the handle of your bot account (e.g. mybot.bsky.social) and save it as BLUESKY_HANDLE, save it as GitHub repository secret as well
• fetch a fresh cacert.pem from https://curl.se/ca/cacert.pem and save it under /.config

next up: code

• update the LICENSE
• change the example namespaces in composer.json, add any libraries you need, add yourself as author
  • commit the composer.lock after updating
• change/replace the MySkeetBot and MySkeetBotTest examples
  • MySkeetBot needs to extend the abstract SkeetBot class
• update the CLI runner run.php as necessary

finally: run

• test locally: php ./cli/run.php
• create a run.yml in /.github/workflows which enables a scheduled GitHub action (see below)
• profit!

# https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-workflows/workflow-syntax-for-github-actions

on:
  schedule:
    # POSIX cron syntax (every 12th hour), https://crontab.guru/#0_12_*_*_*
    - cron: "0 12 * * *"

name: "Run"

jobs:

  run-bot:
    name: "Run the bot and post to Bluesky"

    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    # requiired for stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action
    permissions:
      contents: write

    env:
      BLUESKY_APP_PW: ${{ secrets.BLUESKY_APP_PW }}
      BLUESKY_HANDLE: ${{ secrets.BLUESKY_HANDLE }}

    steps:
      - name: "Checkout sources"
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: "Install PHP"
        uses: shivammathur/setup-php@v2
        with:
          php-version: "8.2"
          coverage: none
          extensions: curl, fileinfo, intl, json, openssl, mbstring, simplexml, sodium, zlib

      - name: "Install dependencies with composer"
        uses: ramsey/composer-install@v3

      # it's probably a good idea to just commit a cacert and update it every now and then
      - name: "Fetch cacert.pem from curl.haxx.se"
        run: wget -O ./.config/cacert.pem https://curl.se/ca/cacert.pem

      - name: "Run bot"
        run: php ./cli/run.php

      # please note that this requires read/write permissions for the actions runner!
      - name: "Commit log"
        uses: stefanzweifel/git-auto-commit-action@v5
        with:
          commit_message: ":octocat: posted skeet"
          file_pattern: "data/posted.json"
          commit_user_name: "github-actions[bot]"
          commit_user_email: "41898282+github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com"
          commit_author: "github-actions[bot] <41898282+github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>"

related projects

• php-skeetbot/php-skeetbot
  • php-skeetbot/skeetbot-template
• chillerlan/php-httpinterface
  • chillerlan/php-http-message-utils
  • chillerlan/php-oauth
• chillerlan/php-settings-container
• chillerlan/php-dotenv

disclaimer

WE'RE TOTALLY NOT RUNNING A PRODUCTION-LIKE ENVIRONMENT ON GITHUB.
WE'RE RUNNING A TEST AND POST THE RESULT TO AN EXTERNAL WEBSITE.
WE'RE JUST LOOKING IF THE SCRIPT STILL WORKS ON A SCHEDULE N TIMES A DAY.