webchanges 3.36.1

Web Changes Delivered. AI-Summarized. Totally Anonymous.

webchanges anonymously checks web content (including images) and commands for changes, delivering instant notifications and AI-powered summaries to your favorite platform.

Requirements

webchanges requires .

For the best experience, use the current version of Python. We also support older Python versions for 3 years after they’re replaced by a newer one; we just ask that you use the most up-to-date bug and security fix release from that older version.

While webchanges supports free-threated Python, certain optional dependencies may not.

For Generative AI summaries (BETA), you need a free API Key from Google Cloud AI Studio (see here).

Installation

Install webchanges with uv (recommended):

uv pip install webchanges

or with pip:

pip install webchanges

Running in Docker

webchanges can easily run in a Docker container! You will find a minimal implementation (no browser) here, and one with a browser here.

As a GitHub Action

webchanges can easily run as a GitHub Action! You will find an implementation here.

Documentation

The documentation is hosted on Read the Docs. A (very good) AI-generated high-level architectural overview is available on DeepWiki.

Quick Start

Initialize

1. Run the following command to create the default config.yaml (configuration) and jobs.yaml (jobs) files and open an editor to add your jobs:

   webchanges --edit-jobs

2. Run the following command to change the default configuration, e.g. to receive change notifications (”reports”) by email and/or one of many other methods:

   webchanges --edit-config

Run

To check the sources in your jobs and report on (e.g. display or via email) any changes found from the last time the program ran, just run:

webchanges

Schedule

webchanges leverages the power of a system scheduler:

• On Linux you can use cron, with the help of a tool like crontab.guru (help here);

• On Windows you can use Windows Task Scheduler;

• On macOS you can use launchd (help here).

Code

The code, issues tracker, and discussions are hosted on GitHub.

Contributing

We welcome any contribution no matter how small, both as pull requests or issue reports.

More information for code and documentation contributors is here, and our wishlist is here.

License

See the complete licenses (released under the MIT License but redistributing modified source code, dated 30 July 2020, from urlwatch 2.21 licensed under a BSD 3-Clause License).

Compatibility with urlwatch

This project is based on code from urlwatch 2.21 dated 30 July 2020. For upgrading from urlwatch to webchanges (using the same job and configuration files), see here.