Daily Briefings App (Python)

Sends you a customized email every morning, with information of interest, such as the upcoming weather forecast for your zip code.

Installation

Create a copy of this template repo, then clone or download your new repo onto your local computer (for example to the Desktop), and navigate there from the command-line:

cd ~/Desktop/daily-briefings-py/

Use Anaconda to create and activate a new virtual environment, perhaps called "briefings-env":

conda create -n briefings-env python=3.8
conda activate briefings-env

Then, within an active virtual environment, install package dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Configuration

Follow these SendGrid setup instructions to sign up for a SendGrid account, configure your account's email address (i.e. SENDER_EMAIL_ADDRESS), and obtain an API key (i.e. SENDGRID_API_KEY).

Create a new file called ".env" in the root directory of this repo, and paste the following contents inside, using your own values as appropriate:

# these are example contents for the ".env" file:

# required vars:
SENDGRID_API_KEY="_______________"
SENDER_EMAIL_ADDRESS="_______________"

# optional vars:
#APP_ENV="development"
#COUNTRY_CODE="US"
#ZIP_CODE="10017"
#USER_NAME="Jon Snow"

Usage

Printing today's weather forecast (to test the Weather.gov API):

python -m app.weather_service

# in production mode:
APP_ENV="production" COUNTRY_CODE="US" ZIP_CODE="20057" python -m app.weather_service

Sending an example email (to test the SendGrid service):

python -m app.email_service

NOTE: the SendGrid emails might first start showing up in spam, until you designate them as coming from a trusted source (i.e. "Looks Safe")

Sending the weather forecast in an email:

python -m app.daily_briefing

# in production mode:
APP_ENV="production" COUNTRY_CODE="US" ZIP_CODE="20057" python -m app.daily_briefing

Testing

Running tests:

pytest

# in CI mode:
CI=true pytest

Deploying

Follow the deployment instructions to deploy the app to a remote server and schedule the server to send you the weather forecast email every day.