/nervous-system

The Nervous System is a tool for connecting information sources to a centralized notes location (aka the Brain)

Primary LanguageRubyMIT LicenseMIT

Nervous::System

This system is a work in progress.

The Nervous System is a tool for connecting information sources to a centralized notes location (aka the Brain).

Its primary goal is to allow information sources to be added and removed dynamically, and to provide a unified interface for accessing information.

Right now this only integrates into Notion but is set up to allow easy integration with other platforms in the future.

Integrations

  • Todoist
  • Geekbot
  • Planned Integrations
    • GoodReads + Kindle Highlights
    • Notability via Dropbox
    • Otter.ai
    • GitHub Starred Repos

Known Limitations

  • Unofficial Notion API must be used to fill in some gaps
  • Todoist content is not synced into Notion yet.

Installation & Usage

  1. Create a Gemfile and add the following Gem:
# frozen_string_literal: true

source "https://rubygems.org"
gem 'nervous-system', git: "https://github.com/jules2689/nervous-system.git"
gem "todoist-ruby", git: "https://github.com/jules2689/todoist-ruby.git"
gem "dotenv" # Only need this if you want to run with your env vars in .env file
  1. Create a run.rb file and add:
require 'nervous/system'
jobs = [
    Nervous::System::ETL::Jobs::TodoistSyncJob.setup(backend: :notion, env: ENV),
    Nervous::System::ETL::Jobs::GeekbotSyncJob.setup(backend: :notion, env: ENV),
]
jobs.each [ |j| Kiba.run(j) }
  1. Add a Rakefile and add:
# frozen_string_literal: true
require "nervous/system/tasks"

  1. Setup databases in Notion for the chosen integrations. See Database Properties for instructions

  2. Add Tokens and other environments variables to a .env file, or to your environment

  • Make sure to gitignore the .env file.
  • You should provide the tokens specified below under the Tokens and Env Vars section
  1. Add a db/config.yml file with the following content:
development:
  adapter: sqlite3
  database: db/development.sqlite3
  pool: 5
  timeout: 5000

test:
  adapter: sqlite3
  database: db/test.sqlite3
  pool: 5
  timeout: 5000

production:
  adapter: sqlite3
  database: db/production.sqlite3
  pool: 5
  timeout: 5000

  1. Run bundle install

  2. Run bundle exec rake db:create db:migrate

  3. Run bundle exec run.rb

Tokens and Env Vars

Name What is it? How do I get it?
Notion
NOTION_TOKEN An access token for your Notion Integration, the official API https://developers.notion.com/
NOTION_UNOFFICIAL_TOKEN An access token for the unofficial Notion API. Used to fill in gaps from the official API See below
NOTION_SPACE_ID The Space ID for use with the unofficial API. See below
Geekbot
GEEKBOT_ACCESS_TOKEN Access token for Geekbot, if used. https://geekbot.com/dashboard/api-webhooks
GEEKBOT_STANDUP_ID The Standup you wish to sync, if needed From the URL of a standup listed on https://app.geekbot.com/dashboard/
Todoist
TODOIST_TOKEN API Token for your Todoist account, if needed https://todoist.com/prefs/integrations

Notion Unofficial API

The official API is new and incomplete. It is missing things like deleting or updating existing blocks, setting page covers, and setting page icons. To fill in this gap, we use the unofficial API. Here are instructions for setup. Instructions are from https://compile.blog/automatic-notion-backup/.

To make it easy, here’s the step-to-step guide to proceed:

  1. Open Google Chrome and log in to your Notion account
  2. Navigate to Settings and Members > Settings
  3. Open the Chrome DevTools by pressing ctrl + shift + j (on Windows/Linus) or cmd + option + j (on macOS)
  4. Now proceed with the next instructions carefully
    • Click on the Network tab
    • Enable XHR filter
    • Clear the console by clicking on the cancel icon
    • Click on the “Export all workspace content“, select your preferred Export format and click on the Export button
    • Select enqueueTask from the Name column
    • Move to the Headers tab and scroll down till you see “cookie:“
    • Copy token_v2 and note down in a text note by name NOTION_TOKEN_V2
    • Copy spaceId from Request Payload section and note down in a text note by name NOTION_SPACE_ID

Image showing how to get the space id and token

Database Properties

Databases are required to be set up in Notion with specific fields of specific types. These are as follows

Todoist

Name Type of Property
Category Select
Reminder Date
Status Select with Open and Archive Options
external_id number
project_id number

Geekbot

Name Type of Property
Category Select
Person Select
URL URL
Status Select with Open and Archive Options
GeekbotId number

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake test to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and the created tag, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/jules2689/nervous-system. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the code of conduct.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Code of Conduct

Everyone interacting in the Nervous::System project's codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists is expected to follow the code of conduct.