From 4a7862b0f1c7cec898bfa08114819a74690d4962 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Mark Powers Date: Wed, 22 May 2024 20:20:00 -0500 Subject: Add huginn post --- content/blog/huginn.md | 76 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 76 insertions(+) create mode 100644 content/blog/huginn.md (limited to 'content/blog') diff --git a/content/blog/huginn.md b/content/blog/huginn.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..98f42eb --- /dev/null +++ b/content/blog/huginn.md @@ -0,0 +1,76 @@ +--- +title: "An Introduction to Huginn" +date: 2024-05-23T00:00:00-05:00 +--- +I've been playing around a lot with [Huginn](https://github.com/huginn/huginn), +which is a service that allows you to run "agents" for automation. It is similar +to IFTTT. + +A lot of people see Huginn, and think it's cool, but don't know what to do with +it. I didn't really either when I first heard of the project a few years ago. +Hopefully you can get some ideas from this blog. + +I have [previously written about my "On This Day" software](https://marks.kitchen/blog/on_this_day/), which was a webserver +I handcrafted. It ran a bunch of scripts to pull in data from various sources, +and would create a daily digest of the items. Since I put this together fairly +quickly several years ago, it runs usually without issue. But it's annoying to +extend, and annoying to debug. I wanted to try to migrate the functionaility to +huginn. + +Huginn has a bit of a learning curve. At first, I was having a hard time +understanding the agent configuration options, and I couldn't even figure out +how to use the HTTP request agent (called the "Website Agent"). With some light +reading of the source code, I figured everything out. Currently, my "On This +Day" scenario features 14 agents. + +- 7 "source" agents. Most of these are the "Website agents" which scrape some + data from the web, and parse the information I want from it. Several of + these are for comics, and they simply output the image source for a comic + image. One of the agents is a JavaScript agent, which runs a script I wrote + that generates a different result based on the date. + +- 5 formatting agents, which take in random JSON input, and normalize it. Each + source has a different input, but the outputs all just have a "message" and + a "type". + +- 1 digest agent, which takes in the normalized JSON, and combines it into one + HTML template. This listens for events over the course of a day, and then + when scheduled, it outputs the result of the templating. + +- 1 "data output" agent, which basically just means an RSS feed output. For + every new input, this adds an item to the feed. + +So far, this solution works really well. It's really easy to add new things. A +few of the odd data sources from "On This Day" use JavaScript to fill in +functionality gaps. For my journal data entry, which gets entries from historic +journals, I ended up making my own API service. I finished most of this API in +an evening, and adding it into huginn was really simple. + +For fun, I also added a "reblog" feed. I connected an Webhook agent to my RSS +reader, Miniflux. I can "save" stories in Miniflux, and their links will get +added to a daily list of "reblogged" items. I used a manual agent as well so +that I can add links that don't originate from Miniflux (i.e. if I just find +something elsewhere on the web). You can follow [this feed +here](https://huginn.marks.kitchen/users/1/web_requests/23/reblogs.xml). + +I also have been using huginn for my personal tracking stuff. I previously had a +bunch of cronjobs running on a raspberry pi. It collected data from my +Airgradient arduino, and used a weather API. Some of this I've moved fully to +Huginn, which will massively simplify all of the configuration. + +One benefit of having all of this is huginn is that it is much easier to set it +all up again on a new server. As much as possible, everything is together in one +place, rather than spread around in cronjobs on various nodes. I've been putting +everything in Docker and exposing it via Traefik. It's very simple to set this +all up. + +One downside of Huginn is that it's been hogging a lot of memory on my VPS. This +isn't a huge deal, as I was already using a very minimal server. Additionally, +as I mentioned before, it does take some time to figure out everything. I'm +still not 100% sure of all of the settings, but functionally I was able to get a +lot out with minimal tinkering. I also was dissapointed in the Docker setup, +which doesn't have as much documentation for as I expected. + +Overall, I really enjoy Huginn! It's taken a lot of the scripts I've written +over the last few years, and simplies their deployment and configuration. It's +so much easier to update them, and I can do things I never before attempted. -- cgit v1.2.3