A small WhatsApp bot that sends you a daily digest of Hacker News, filtered down to the topics you care about.
Every day at 10 PM IST it pulls the top 100 HN stories of the last 24 hours, keeps only the ones matching your topics (Machine Learning, Data Science, Mathematics and LLMs, which I have chosen by default), and sends them to a WhatsApp group: a short header, then one message per post.
Example:
*HN Daily Digest — 31 Oct 2026*
13 posts for you today
*Backdoors in official Claude Code extensions*
LLMs · matched "Claude"_
⬆655 pts • 17 comments • by dsr_
https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/117528831681803563
HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50302334
Each post also gets a link preview card.
- Keyword topics: each post is assigned to exactly one topic, using regexes you can edit
- One message per post: within each topic, highest points first
- No repeats: sent posts are remembered (for 7 days) and never sent twice
- Survives reconnects: if the connection drops around 10 PM, the digest waits for it to come back
- Bun 1.1 or newer
- A WhatsApp account for the bot (a spare number is recommended) that is a member of the target group
git clone git@github.com:PranavU-Coder/rssgen.git
cd rssgen
bun install
cp .env.example .envbun startScan the QR code printed in the terminal from WhatsApp → Linked devices → Link a device. You have 5 minutes before the bot gives up. The session is saved to .session/, so you only do this once.
If you'd rather use a pairing code than a QR code, set USE_PAIRING_CODE=true and PAIRING_NUMBER=<your number with country code> in .env.
bun src/utils/listGroups.tsThis lists every group the bot is in, together with its JID (something like 120363xxxxxxxxxxxx@g.us).
Put the JID in .env:
DIGEST_GROUP=120363xxxxxxxxxxxx@g.usGroup IDs are kept out of the code on purpose: .env is gitignored, so they never end up in the repo. If DIGEST_GROUP is missing or malformed, the bot refuses to start and tells you how to find it.
Topics live in src/config/groups.ts. Each topic has:
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
name |
Label shown on each message |
group |
WhatsApp group JID to send to (read from .env); topics can share a group or use different ones |
priority |
Order topics are tried in; a post goes to the first topic it matches (lower number wins) |
match |
Case-insensitive regex tested against the post title |
The order of topics in the array is the order they are sent in. priority exists so specific topics can claim posts first: LLMs is priority 1, so "Fine-tuning Llama" is filed under LLMs rather than Machine Learning.
To add a topic, add another entry with its own regex. To send some topics to a different group, add a variable to .env (e.g. MATHS_GROUP=...), expose it in src/config/env.ts, and use groupJid("MATHS_GROUP", env.mathsGroup) as that topic's group. Keep keywords specific: titles are short, and broad words like "regression" or "tokens" pull in off-topic posts.
bun startThe bot logs how long until the next digest and then sits idle until 10 PM IST. It has to be running at that time; if it starts after 10 PM, the first digest goes out the next night.
To change the send time, edit DIGEST_TIME_IST in src/index.ts.
.env:
| Variable | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
BOT_NAME |
rssgen |
Device name shown under Linked devices |
SESSION_DIR |
.session |
Where WhatsApp credentials are stored |
LOG_LEVEL |
info |
debug, info, warn or error |
USE_PAIRING_CODE |
false |
Log in with a pairing code instead of a QR code |
PAIRING_NUMBER |
Phone number for pairing-code login | |
DIGEST_GROUP |
(required) | Group JID the digest is sent to |
Logs go to the terminal and to logs/bot.log. Sent-post history lives in data/sent_posts.json.
- Built on Baileys, an unofficial WhatsApp Web client. Automated accounts can be restricted by WhatsApp, so use a number you don't mind losing. Messages are spaced 1.5 s apart to stay well within rate limits.
- Stories come from the public HN Algolia API; no API key needed.
See CONTRIBUTING.md and the Code of Conduct.