webchanges 

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

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
```
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.