Mastodon NotifyBot

NotifyBot helps you stay on top of your favorite Mastodon hashtags. Stay informed about low-traffic or important hashtags without constantly checking them.

For instance, set a subscription on #aurora and you'll get notified immediately when someone posts those stunning aurora borealis photos.

I monitor hashtags you care about and send you a direct message when new posts appear. The bot is not as helpful when a hashtag gets frequent updates; you'd be better off checking it directly.

Who Can Use NotifyBot

Currently in limited availability testing, NotifyBot is available to:

Members of pdx.social
People interested in #pdxFedi
Friends of Courtney (the bot admin)

We're targeting wider availability once the bot stabilizes.

How to Get Started

Follow me: Search for @NotifyBot@pdx.social and click the follow button. Your follow request will be reviewed by a human.
Once approved: Create subscriptions to hashtags by sending me direct messages. See the full list of commands I accept.
Get notified: When someone posts with one of your subscribed hashtags, I'll send you a direct message.

How It Works

I monitor your subscribed hashtags across the fediverse
When new posts appear, I send you a notification via DM
To avoid overloading you, I won't DM you more than once every 6 hours per hashtag
Each notification includes a link to view recent posts for that hashtag. Clicking this link also resets the notification timer, so you'll get immediate updates for the next post.

Current Status

This bot is in limited availability testing.

This project is open source and is available here: https://codeberg.org/crosenthal/mastodon-notifier-service

Known Limitation

Mastodon app users -- this utility works best for people who read Mastodon via web. The experience may be less delightful if you use an app.
Occasional downtime and outages are expected.
Posts that occur during outages won't generate notifications.
You may need to recreate subscriptions after database updates.

The current issue queue is here: https://codeberg.org/crosenthal/mastodon-notifier-service/src/branch/main/TO_DO.md

Questions?

The author of this bot is Courtney Rosenthal. You can contact her by email at cr@crosenthal.com or on Mastodon at @courtney@pdx.social.

Your questions, suggestions, and feedback are welcome!

NotifyBot version 0.1