# subreddit-announcer

A Discord bot that watches subreddits and posts an embed to a Discord channel
whenever a new submission appears. Built with [discord.py] and [asyncpraw];
state is a local SQLite DB. One long-running process polls Reddit on an
interval — no webhooks, no external scheduler.

## How it works

- A background loop polls each watched subreddit's `/new` every
  `ANNOUNCER_POLL_INTERVAL` seconds (default 60).
- The first time a subreddit is watched it's **bootstrapped silently**: the
  posts already on `/new` are recorded as "seen" without being announced, so
  adding a busy subreddit doesn't dump its backlog into the channel. Only posts
  created afterwards are announced.
- Seen submission ids are stored in SQLite for dedup and pruned to the most
  recent 500 per subreddit.

## Setup

### 1. Discord application

1. Create an app at <https://discord.com/developers/applications>.
2. **Bot** tab → reset/copy the token → put it in `config.env` as `DISCORD_TOKEN`.
3. Invite the bot to your server with the **`bot`** and **`applications.commands`**
   scopes, and the **Send Messages** + **Embed Links** permissions.
   No privileged intents are required (the bot never reads message content).

### 2. Reddit app (read-only)

1. Go to <https://www.reddit.com/prefs/apps> → **create another app**.
2. Choose type **script**. The client id is the string shown under the app
   name; the secret is labelled **secret**.
3. Put both into `config.env` (`REDDIT_CLIENT_ID`, `REDDIT_CLIENT_SECRET`).

### 3. Config + run

```bash
cp config.example.env config.env
$EDITOR config.env            # fill in the tokens

# uv handles the venv + deps from pyproject.toml
set -a; source config.env; set +a
uv run bot.py
```

## Commands

Slash commands (server-only; replies are ephemeral):

| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| `/watch <subreddit> [channel]` | Announce a subreddit's new posts in a channel (defaults to the current one). |
| `/unwatch <subreddit>` | Stop announcing that subreddit in this server. |
| `/watching` | List the subreddits announced in this server. |
| `/setinterval <seconds>` | Change the global poll interval (min 15s). |

## Running it persistently

It's a single foreground process; keep it alive however you like — `systemd`,
`tmux`, `pm2`, or a container. A minimal systemd unit:

```ini
[Service]
WorkingDirectory=/home/megaproxy/claude/projects/subreddit-announcer
EnvironmentFile=/home/megaproxy/claude/projects/subreddit-announcer/config.env
ExecStart=/home/megaproxy/.local/bin/uv run bot.py
Restart=always
```

## Notes

- `config.env` and `announcer.db` are gitignored — secrets and state stay local.
- Syntax check: `uv run python -m py_compile bot.py`.

[discord.py]: https://discordpy.readthedocs.io/
[asyncpraw]: https://asyncpraw.readthedocs.io/