Economic Calendar Discord Bot with-tariffs-wide-open

This project is a Discord bot that scrapes economic calendar events from MarketWatch and displays them via a slash command in a mobile-friendly, multi-page embed. Events are grouped by date and only upcoming events are shown. A daily scheduler automatically updates the event data, and a fallback re-scrape is performed if no data is found when a command is used.

Features

• Daily Data Update: A cron job (via node-cron) scrapes and stores events once a day.
• Fallback Re-scrape: If no stored data exists when the /calendar command is invoked, the bot will re-scrape the latest events.
• Grouped & Paginated Display: Events are grouped by date so that repeated date headings are consolidated. The bot displays the events in multi-page embeds with “Previous” and “Next” buttons for easy navigation.
• Responsive Notification Updates: The bot sends scheduled notifications 30 minutes and 1 minute before events. The 1-minute alert is updated after the event starts, pulling updated data (including actual values) and displaying performance indicators (e.g., “↑ Higher” or “↓ Lower”).
• User-Agent Rotation: The scraper rotates among a pool of realistic browser user agents to reduce the risk of being blocked.
• Fake Date Support for Testing: You can simulate a different current date by setting the FAKE_DATE environment variable.
• Optimized & Modularized Code: Refactored for long-term stability and maintainability, with clear separation of concerns across modules.

Technologies Used

• Node.js
• discord.js v14
• axios
• cheerio
• node-cron
• TypeScript
• ts-node
• dotenv
• date-fns & date-fns-tz

Setup & Installation

1. Clone the Repository:

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/your-repo-name.git
   cd your-repo-name

2. Install Dependencies:

   npm install

3. Create a .env File:

   In the project root, create a file named .env and add the following (replace placeholder values with your actual Discord credentials):

      DISCORD_TOKEN=your_discord_bot_token
      DISCORD_CHANNEL_ID=your_discord_channel_id
      CLIENT_ID=your_client_id
      # Optional: Set a fake date for testing (in ISO 8601 format, EST-based)
      FAKE_DATE=2025-03-17T07:28:58.000Z
      # Optional: Set RESCRAPE=1 to manually force a data update on startup
      RESCRAPE=0

4. Build/Run the Bot: You can run the bot using:

   npm run start

   The bot will log in to Discord, start the daily scheduler, and listen for slash command interactions.

Usage

/calendar Command

When you type /calendar in your Discord server, the bot loads stored event data (or re-scrapes if missing), filters out past events, groups events by date, and displays them in a multi-page embed.

Users can navigate between pages using “Previous page” and “Next page” buttons.

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Project Structure

src/index.ts: The main entry point that initializes the Discord bot and starts the scheduler.

src/discordBot.ts: Sets up the Discord client, listens for slash command and button interactions, and logs in the bot.

src/scraper.ts: Contains the scraper logic (using axios and cheerio) with rotating user agents to fetch economic calendar data from MarketWatch.

src/storage.ts: Provides functions for reading from and writing to the local JSON file where scraped event data is stored.

src/scheduler.ts: Contains the cron job for daily event updates.

src/notifier.ts: Schedules and sends notifications for upcoming events.

src/globalSetup.ts: Handles global initialization tasks (e.g., setting fake dates, validating environment variables, and handling unhandled rejections).

src/commands/calendar.ts: Implements the /calendar command. This module groups events by date, builds multi-page embeds with inline fields, and sets up pagination buttons.

src/events/notifierMessage.ts: Contains functions to build and send Discord embeds for notifications.

src/models/event.ts: Defines the CalendarEvent interface.