StackSense Agent

Autonomous research agent that keeps the StackSense tool knowledge base current. Runs on a schedule, researches new tools, audits pricing, commits updates to GitHub, and notifies via Slack.

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What it does

• Every 2 days → searches Product Hunt, Hacker News, dev.to for new tools
• Evaluates candidates against quality bar (real pricing page, not beta, meaningfully different)
• Adds up to 3 new tools per scan to lib/tools.json in your StackSense repo
• Audits 10 oldest-reviewed tools for pricing changes each scan
• Commits directly to GitHub → Vercel auto-deploys StackSense with fresh data
• Sends Slack notification with summary after every scan

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Architecture

node-cron (scheduler)
      ↓
Research Agent
  → Brave Search API (finds new tools)
  → Claude API (evaluates and formats)
      ↓
Audit Agent  
  → Fetches pricing pages
  → Claude API (detects changes)
      ↓
GitHub API (commits tools.json)
      ↓
Vercel (auto-deploys StackSense)
      ↓
Slack (notification)

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Setup

1. Clone and install

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/stacksense-agent
cd stacksense-agent
npm install

2. Configure environment

cp .env.example .env

Fill in .env:

Variable	Where to get it
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	console.anthropic.com
GITHUB_TOKEN	GitHub → Settings → Developer Settings → Personal Access Tokens → Fine-grained → contents: read+write
GITHUB_REPO_OWNER	your GitHub username
GITHUB_REPO_NAME	stacksense
BRAVE_API_KEY	api.search.brave.com (free: 2000 searches/mo)
SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL	api.slack.com/apps → Incoming Webhooks

3. Run locally

# Start the scheduler
npm start

# Trigger a manual scan right now
npm run scan

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Deploy on AWS t4g.small (alongside StackSense)

# SSH into your instance
ssh ubuntu@your-ec2-ip

# Clone the agent repo
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/stacksense-agent
cd stacksense-agent

# Set up environment
cp .env.example .env
nano .env  # fill in your keys

# Build and run with Docker
docker-compose up -d

# Check it's running
docker-compose logs -f

# Trigger a manual scan to test
docker-compose exec stacksense-agent node src/scan-now.js

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Manual commands

# Trigger scan immediately
npm run scan

# Watch logs
tail -f logs/agent.log

# Docker
docker-compose up -d        # start
docker-compose down         # stop
docker-compose logs -f      # logs
docker-compose restart      # restart

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Cron schedule

Job	Default schedule	Description
KB scan	0 9 */2 * *	Every 2 days at 9am PKT
Pricing audit	0 10 * * 1	Every Monday at 10am PKT

Change via SCAN_SCHEDULE and AUDIT_SCHEDULE in .env.

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Extending

Change scan frequency

SCAN_SCHEDULE="0 9 */3 * *"   # every 3 days
SCAN_SCHEDULE="0 9 * * *"     # daily

Add search queries

Edit src/agents/research.js → SEARCH_QUERIES array.

Change max tools per scan

MAX_TOOLS_PER_SCAN=5

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Built by Agentic Layer