flipdot / voucherbot

voucherbot for discourse

The voucherbot manages the distribution of vouchers via Discourse. It was originally created for distributing the vouchers for the 36C3.

A voucher is usable a single time, but replicates itself. The idea is therefore to pass the generated tokens to your friends.

We, flipdot, receive a list of vouchers. We distribute them via Discourse to our members, who can then pass them to their friends. As soon as all their friends bought their ticket, they should send them back to us, so we can distribute it to another member.

This bot simplifies this process by automating parts of it. A yaml file serves as a database, containing a mapping of vouchers and member accounts. Optionally, you can enter a number of persons, so you are able to estimate how long the voucher will be on it's way.

Features

• Updates a post in the forum. The post contains a table with the information which member received a vouchers
• Sends the voucher via forum message to the member
• Receives a returned voucher and updates the yaml file with the new one
• Broadcast: Allows to send a message to all current voucher owners

Usage

Python 3.7 required (TODO: require 3.8 to be able to use TypedDict eventually)

Copy example_voucher.yml to voucher.yml. Enter your vouchers and their owners. Make a backup of this file (we do not make one for you and we WILL modify this file. Don't cry if something get's lost).

Open constants.py and change VOUCHER_TABLE_POST_ID. This post will be constantly updated with the table of members who currently own a voucher.

pip install -r requirements.txt
DISCOURSE_API_KEY=deadbeef python src/app.py --dry  # leave out --dry if you are brave

The script will send a message with a voucher to each person who is in voucher.yml. It will save the Discourse topic id in the file as message_id, so it won't send the same message twice.

If a user replies to that message, the script will scan for the string CHAOS[a-zA-Z0-9]+ in their messages. If it finds a new voucher, the old voucher in the yml file get's replaced by the new one and all other fields will be reset.