cause
v0.10.4
Published
(web) automation framework
Downloads
4
Readme
’cause
an automation tool
why?
’cause
no, seriously. other tools exist — why reinvent the wheel?
- ifttt is great, but too simple
- yahoo! pipes doesn't let you create your own modules
- huginn looks very promising, but I don't want to learn ruby
- noflo didn't seem very accessible at the time I looked at it
- I discovered node-red only after I had already begun working on ’cause
- workflow is nice, but ios only
ultimately I did it to scratch my own itch.
theoretically you could use ’cause to do what tools like maid and controlplane do.
installation
requirements:
git clone https://github.com/freder/cause.git
cd cause
npm install && bower install
gulp build
mv config.js.example config.js
then edit config.js
and fill in the XXXXXXXXX
s.
run
node index.js
or, if you want to see debug
messages:
DEBUG=cause:* node index.js
web frontend
as you start the tool, it ~~opens the web frontend in the browser~~ will tell you the URL you can access the web frontend with.
it currently only lists your active tasks and a visualization. the plan for the future is to make it possible to create and edit tasks using the web interface.
blocks
blocks are modular units — building blocks, so to speak. they receive the output of the previous block as their input, act upon it, and then in turn pass their output on to the next block. following the unix philosophy, blocks should only do one thing, but do it well.
based on its inherent logic, a ’cause block needs to decide if s.th. is worth reacting to or not. there are three different directions a block can pass its output on to:
- if: s.th. changed / happened / fulfills a condition
- else: the complement of if
- always: always invoke the next block
you can think of it as an if
/ else
statement with an extra always
branch. each branch is optional and can have multiple following blocks connected to it.
a list of all available ’cause blocks on npm
writing your own blocks
check out cause-website-changed for a documented example.
if you create your own building blocks, make sure to share them as an npm package, and to add the cause-block
tag / keyword.
tasks
tasks are defined as json files. example:
{
"name": "adventure time",
"interval": "every 2 hours",
"steps": [
{
"id": "feed",
"block": "feed",
"description": "check if there are new adventure time episodes",
"options": {
"url": "http://www.watchcartoononline.com/anime/adventure-time/feed"
},
"flow": {
"if": [
"console",
"email"
]
}
},
{
"id": "console",
"block": "log-console",
"options": {
"title": "new episodes",
"message": "<%var episodes = input.map(function(ep) { return ep.title; })%>\n<%=format.list(episodes)%>"
}
},
{
"id": "email",
"block": "email-notification",
"options": {
"title": "new adventure time episode(s)",
"message": "<%_.each(input, function(ep) {%><a href=\"<%=ep.link%>\"><%=ep.title%></a><br><%})%>"
}
}
]
}