Birthday Bot Dashboard

A long-running service that automatically sends birthday notifications to Slack and provides a web dashboard for monitoring upcoming birthdays.

Features

• Automated Birthday Notifications: Sends birthday messages to Slack daily at 7 AM Central Time
• AI-Generated Messages: Uses OpenAI to create unique, witty birthday messages with historical facts
• Message History: Tracks historical facts used to ensure variety year-over-year
• Message Preview & Regeneration: Preview all messages 21 days in advance and regenerate if needed
• LDAP Validation: Verifies users exist in LDAP before sending notifications
• Web Dashboard: Responsive web interface showing upcoming birthdays (configurable look-ahead period)
• Editable Prompt Template: Customize the AI prompt template through the web interface
• Light/Dark Theme: Automatic theme detection based on browser preferences
• Mobile Friendly: Responsive design that works on all devices
• Real-time Status: Live status monitoring and event validation
• Timezone Aware: Stores times in UTC, displays in user's local timezone

Requirements

• Docker and Docker Compose
• ICS calendar URL with birthday events
• Slack webhook URL
• LDAP server access (Google LDAP with certificates)

Quick Start

# 1. Clone repository
git clone [repository URL]
cd birthdays-to-slack

# 2. Copy and configure environment variables
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your actual values

# 3. Start the service
make build
make up

# 4. Access dashboard at http://localhost:5000

Configuration

Edit .env directly with your actual values:

# ICS calendar URL containing birthday events
ICS_URL=https://your-calendar-url.com/calendar.ics

# Slack webhook URL for notifications
WEBHOOK_URL=https://hooks.slack.com/services/YOUR/WEBHOOK/URL

# Flask secret key (generate a secure random string)
FLASK_SECRET_KEY=your-secret-key-change-this-in-production

# OpenAI API key (optional - enables AI-generated messages)
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-proj-...

Usage

Production Deployment

For detailed deployment instructions, see DEPLOYMENT.md.

Quick deployment:

# Configure deployment environment
cp deploy/.env.example deploy/.env
# Edit deploy/.env with your values

# Deploy to server
make deploy

# On server: ec2-user@18.118.142.110
ssh ec2-user@18.118.142.110
cd birthdays-to-slack/
./deploy.sh

Watchtower automatically monitors the deployed image tags and pulls the latest version. When you push an update with the :latest tag, Watchtower will detect the new image, pull it, and restart the service automatically without manual intervention.

Development Mode

# Start in development mode (auto-reload, debug mode)
make dev

# Run tests
make test

# Get a shell for debugging
make shell

Available Commands

• make build - Build Docker images
• make up - Start production service (background)
• make down - Stop the service
• make dev - Start development mode
• make test - Run tests
• make logs - View service logs
• make shell - Access container shell
• make clean - Remove all Docker resources

Web Dashboard

The web dashboard provides:

• Service Status: Real-time monitoring of the birthday bot service
• Upcoming Birthdays: Configurable look-ahead period (default 30 days)
• LDAP Validation: Shows which events will be sent vs. skipped
• Statistics: Total, valid, and skipped events count
• Responsive Design: Works on desktop, tablet, and mobile
• Theme Support: Light/dark/auto themes

Dashboard Features

• 📅 Schedule View: Shows all upcoming birthdays with dates and validation status
• 🤖 AI Messages: Preview AI-generated birthday messages with historical facts
• 🔄 Regenerate Messages: Click to regenerate any message you want to change
• ✏️ Edit Prompt: Customize the AI prompt template for message generation
• ✅ Validation Indicators: Green checkmarks for valid events, red X for skipped events
• 🌙 Theme Toggle: Light, dark, and auto (system preference) themes
• 📱 Mobile Responsive: Optimized for all screen sizes
• 🔄 Auto Refresh: Dashboard updates every 30 seconds
• 🕐 Timezone Aware: Displays times in your local timezone

Service Behavior

Scheduling

• Daily Notifications: Automatically sends birthday messages at 7:00 AM Central Time
• Cache Updates: Birthday data refreshes every 6 hours
• Always Running: Service runs continuously, no manual intervention needed

LDAP Integration

• Validates each birthday person against Google LDAP
• Only sends notifications for validated users
• Displays validation status in the web dashboard
• Uses secure TLS connection with certificates

AI Message Generation

• Unique Messages: Each birthday gets a custom message with a positive historical fact
• Fact History: Tracks facts used for each person to avoid repetition in future years
• Fallback Messages: Simple messages used if OpenAI is unavailable
• Preview & Edit: All messages generated in advance for review
• Prompt Customization: Modify the AI prompt template through the dashboard

Error Handling

• Graceful handling of network issues
• Continues running if individual operations fail
• Comprehensive logging for troubleshooting
• Health checks for service monitoring

Environment Variables

Variable	Description	Default
ICS_URL	ICS calendar URL with birthday events	Required
WEBHOOK_URL	Slack webhook URL for notifications	Required
FLASK_SECRET_KEY	Flask session security key	Required
OPENAI_API_KEY	OpenAI API key for message generation	Optional
LDAP_SERVER	LDAP server URL	ldaps://ldap.google.com
SEARCH_BASE	LDAP search base	ou=Users,dc=visiquate,dc=com
PORT	Web server port	5000
FLASK_ENV	Flask environment	production
SLACK_NOTIFICATIONS_ENABLED	Enable/disable Slack notifications	false
BIRTHDAY_LOOK_AHEAD_DAYS	Number of days to look ahead for birthdays	30
CLOUDFLARE_TUNNEL_TOKEN	Cloudflare tunnel token for secure access	Optional

Docker Services

• birthdays-to-slack: Main production service (port 5000)
• birthdays-to-slack-dev: Development service with code mounting (port 5001)
• test: Test runner service

Security Notes

• Change the FLASK_SECRET_KEY in production
• LDAP connections use TLS encryption
• Certificates should be properly secured
• Service runs as non-root user in container

License

Apache License Version 2.0

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please open an issue or submit a pull request with your changes.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to all contributors and maintainers of this project.