:santa: advent-of-code-runner :christmas_tree:

A Node.Js CLI solution generator and runner for advent of code.

:mrs_claus: Features

• Quickly and easily scaffolds an empty directory, creating all required solution files.
• Runs your solutions (both sync and async) and measures performance.
• Downloads and caches puzzle input files.
• Submits answers to advent of code.
• Tracks submitted answers and prevents duplicate submissions.
• Stores and outputs statistics to the CLI or your README file.
• Rate limits submissions to prevent timeout penalties.
• Tracks your progress and knows which puzzle to run.
• Uses ECMAScript modules (ESM).

:deer: Table of Contents

• Installation
  • Authentication Token
• Usage
  • solve
  • submit
  • stats
  • auth
  • import
• Solution Files
• Caching
• Misc File Information
• Advanced Configuration
• Example
• Automation Compliance

:milk_glass: Installation

In an empty directory or a freshly created github repository run the following command

npx advent-of-code-runner init 

You will be asked a few questions, then the following contents will be generated:

your-repository-folder/
├── aocr-data.json
├── inputs/
├── node_modules/
├── package.json
├── package.lock.json
├── README.md
├── src/
│   ├── day_01.js
│   ├── day_02.js
│   ├── ...
│   └── day_25.js
├── .env
└── .gitignore

Authentication Token

advent of code generates puzzle inputs unique to your account. In order to download inputs and submit answers this CLI needs to store your advent of code authentication token. The token will be stored in a .env file in your project directory. This .env file should not be committed to source control. When you run the init command a .gitignore file is generated which ignores .env files, so your token is safe by default.

Finding your Authentication Token

The authentication token is stored in an advent of code cookie. Navigate to advent of code, and sign in to your account. Once signed in open up your browsers development tools, find the cookies for adventofcode.com and copy the value of the "session" cookie.

• Firefox help
• Chrome help

Post Installation

Once you run the init command you are ready to start solving the puzzles. Navigate to src/ folder and open up day_01.js. Navigate to the levelOne function and add your code. Run the solve command to see what answer your code returns, if you're happy with the answer run the submit command to see if you got the right answer. From there you can move on to level 2 of day 1 or solve the puzzles in any order you wish. Good luck and have fun!

:star2: Usage

Run the following commands from the root of your repository.

Note: If a command which executes your code (solve or submit) is taking a long time to complete, you can cancel it any any time by pressing Ctrl + c in your terminal.

solve [day] [level]

Runs your code for a specific puzzle, downloads the input file (if not already cached), measures how long your code takes to run, and outputs your answer. This does not submit the answer to advent of code.

This command has different behavior based on which arguments you pass:

No Arguments

npm run solve

If the command is run without any arguments, the CLI will find and solve the next puzzle you have not submitted a correct answer for. This is very useful if you solve puzzles in the order of the advent calendar.

Example:

• If you've correctly answered days 1-4, then day 5 level 1 will be solved.
• If you've correctly answered days 1-7 and day 8 level 1, then day 8 level 2 will be solved.

One Argument

npm run solve [day]

If you run the command with just the day argument, then the level one of the days puzzle will be solved.

Example:

• To solve day 16 level 1: npm run solve 16
• To solve day 4 level 1: npm run solve 4

Two Arguments

npm run solve [day] [level]

If you run the command with the day and the level argument, then the specified puzzle will be solved.

Example:

• To solve day 23 level 2: npm run solve 24 2
• To solve day 15 level 1: npm run solve 15 1

submit [day] [level]

The same behavior as the solve command, however your answer will be submitted to advent of code. Additionally the progress table in your README file will be updated.

This command has different behavior based on which arguments you pass:

No Arguments

npm run submit

If the command is run without any arguments, the CLI will find and submit the next puzzle you have not yet submitted a correct answer for. This is very useful if you solve puzzles in the order of the advent calendar.

One Argument

npm run submit [day]

If you run the command with just the day argument, then the level one of the days puzzle will be submitted.

Example:

• To submit day 12 level 1: npm run submit 12
• To submit day 20 level 1: npm run submit 20

Two Arguments

npm run submit [day] [level]

If you run the command with the day and the level argument, then the specified puzzle will be submitted.

Example:

• To submit day 3 level 2: npm run submit 3 2
• To submit day 14 level 1: npm run submit 14 1

stats [--save]

Generates a table showing your current statistics for the year. Shows you which puzzles you have completed, how many attempts you made for each puzzle, and the fastest recorded runtime for that puzzle. The table additionally displays your completion percentage for the year, the average number of attempts, and the average runtime.

If you run the command without the --save argument then the table will be printed to the console

npm run stats

If you run the command with the --save argument then the table will be saved to your README file.

npm run stats -- --save

Note you must add -- separator between the command name and the --save argument. See this stackoverflow question for more info.

auth

Creates or updates the .env file with your advent of code authentication token. This is a useful command if you checkout your repository on a new machine, since the .env file is not committed to source control and wont be present on the new machine.

npm run auth

import <day> <level> <answer> [--no-confirm]

Stores the correct answer to a puzzle which was solved outside of advent-of-code-runner. This allows you to use advent-of-code-runner even if you already submitted answers with different tools. Before this command you couldn't let advent-of-code-runner know that you had solved a puzzle already. Once you've imported an answer you will probably want to update the corresponding solution file to add your existing code.

Note: All imported puzzles are set to a runtime of 999 seconds. After importing an answer, run the solve command to update the puzzles runtime to a real value.

Running without the --no-confirm flag is the default behavior. You will be asked to confirm when importing any puzzles which already exist in your aocr-data.json file.

npm run import <day> <level> <answer>

Running with the --no-confirm flag will skip any confirmation for overwriting existing data.

npm run -- import --no-confirm <day> <level> <answer> 

Handling different answer types

Answers are stored as strings, so you usually don't need to wrap your answer with quotes. However there are certain answers which will need special care:

• An answer with whitespace: wrap in quotes npm run import 1 1 'an answer with spaces'
• An answer which is a negative number: use -- to escape npm run -- import -- 1 1 -12345

Examples:

• Import answer 'asdf' for day 10 level 1: npm run import 10 1 asdf
• Import answer 999100 for day 7 level 2: npm run import 7 2 999100
• Import answer -4000 for day 1 level 1 and skip confirmation: npm run -- import --no-confirm -- 1 1 -4000

Bulk importing

If you have already solved some puzzles, it would be tedious to manually run the import command a bunch of times. The wiki has a guide for bulk importing puzzle answers using basic linux command line tools.

Projects init before 1.7.0

Projects created using npx advent-of-code-runner init prior to version 1.7.0 will not have an npm script for the import command. You fix this by modifying your package.json file and adding an npm script for the import command:

"scripts": {
  "solve": "advent-of-code-runner solve",
  "submit": "advent-of-code-runner submit",
  "stats": "advent-of-code-runner stats",
  "auth": "advent-of-code-runner auth",
  "help": "advent-of-code-runner help",
  "import": "advent-of-code-runner import"
},

help

Outputs the help text for the cli

npm run help

:snowman: Solution Files

The init command generates a solution file for each day of advent of code. This is where you will add your code to compute the answer to each puzzle.

Each solution file is expected to export two functions:

• levelOne({ input: string, lines: string[] }) -> string|number|Promise<string>|Promise<number>
• levelTwo({ input: string, lines: string[] }) -> string|number|Promise<string>|Promise<number>

These functions:

• Must return a string or a number.
• Can be sync or async

Arguments

Solution functions are invoked with a single argument, an object containing the following fields:

• input: string: A string containing the raw, unprocessed puzzle input. Provided for flexibility and custom parsing.
• lines: string[]: An array of strings containing the each line of the puzzle input. Provided for convenience and speed.

Depending on the puzzle and its input you might need to parse string values into integers.

:cloud_with_snow: Caching

This CLI downloads puzzles inputs only once and saves them to the inputs/ folder. If your input file becomes corrupted you can force a re-download by deleting the file and running the solve or submit command. Additionally the CLI tracks the answers you submit to ensure you don't attempt to re-submit a duplicate answer to a question.

:gift: Misc File Information

aocr-data.json

This file stores your progress. Every time you submit an answer, it is stored in this file to prevent duplicate submissions and track statistics. Additionally it stores the fastest recorded runtime for each puzzle. You should not edit this file manually. This file should be committed to source control.

.ratelimits.json

This file stores rate limit information used when querying the advent of code website. The creator of the website has requested automated tools such as this CLI are conservative in the number of requests made to the website. This file tracks when the last request was made and the CLI uses this data to prevent requests from occurring too frequently. This file is ignored in source control.

.env

This file stores your authentication token, it should not be committed to source control. See the Authentication Token section for more information.

README.md

If you view the plain text markdown, you might notice a section that looks like:

<!--Please do not delete the following comments, they are required to save your stats to this file.-->
<!--START_AUTOGENERATED_COMPLETION_PROGRESS_SECTION-->
<!--END_AUTOGENERATED_COMPLETION_PROGRESS_SECTION-->

The CLI requires this section so it can continually update your readme with your progress table (if using the submit or the stats command).

:christmas_tree: Advanced Configuration

You can customize the behavior of this CLI by using the following options in your .env file. Please keep in mind this is where your authentication token is stored and this file should not be committed to source control.

| Option Name | Accepted Values | Default | Effect | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | AOC_DISABLE_README_AUTO_SAVE_PROGRESS | see yn package | false | If enabled, the README file will not be automatically updated with the progress table during the solve or submit commands. You can still update the README manually with the stats command. | | AOC_SUPPRESS_FESTIVE | see yn package | false | If enabled, the CLI will not add emojis to the console output. | | AOC_LOG_LEVEL | error, warn, info, verbose, debug, silly | warn | Controls the verbosity of logging, a higher level is useful for development |

Example .env file

This example modifies the default .env file created by the init command. It sets the AOC_DISABLE_README_AUTO_SAVE_PROGRESS option to true, which disables the progress table being automatically saved to the README file. It also sets the AOC_SUPPRESS_FESTIVE to true which disables emojis in the console output.

# This is an authentication token to advent of code.
# It is a SECRET and should be treated like a password.
# That means this .env file should NOT be committed to source control!
#
# If you created this project using advent-of-code-runner init, 
# then your .gitignore already includes this file, your secret is safe.
AOC_AUTHENTICATION_TOKEN=asdfasdfasdfasdf
AOC_DISABLE_README_AUTO_SAVE_PROGRESS=true
AOC_SUPPRESS_FESTIVE=true

:snowflake: Example

I am using this CLI for my own advent of code solutions. You can refer to this project as a real world example of how to use this CLI.

Spoiler Warning: This project contains my solutions to advent of code 2022.

:bell: Automation Compliance

This CLI does follow the automation guidelines on the /r/adventofcode community wiki. Specifically:

• Outbound calls are throttled to every five minutes in rateLimitDecorator.js
• Once inputs are downloaded, they are cached locally in getPuzzleInput.js. If you suspect your input is corrupted, you can manually request a fresh copy by deleting the downloaded file.
• The User-Agent header in api.js is set to https://github.com/beakerandjake/advent-of-code-runner by beakerandjake
• Submitted answers are tracked per puzzle and duplicate submissions are prevented in submit.js.