Getting Started

Install stack_alert using pip, preferably into a clean virtual environment:

$ python -m venv ~/stack_alert_venv
$ ~/stack_alert_venv/bin/activate
$ pip install stack_alert

Specify which questions you want to receive alerts for:

$ vi ~/.config/stack_alert/config.toml
[[query]]
site = 'stackoverflow'
tag = 'python'
keywords = '(num|sci)py'  # regular expression
recipient = 'alice@example.com'

Configure cron to call stack_alert at 5:00 PM every day. Log messages are written to stderr. I recommend using ts and tinylog to collect and rotate these messages:

$ which sendmail
/usr/sbin/sendmail
$ crontab -e
PATH=$HOME/stack_alert_venv/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/bin
0 17 * * * stack_alert 2>&1 | ts | tinylog /path/to/log/dir