CDS Paper Bot

This is a bot written in python (version 3) that reads the RSS feeds of the CERN Document Server (CDS) and creates tweets/toots/skeets of new publications.

It currently works pretty well for the ATLAS and CMS feeds listed in feeds.ini, and without images also for LHCb and ALICE.

Follow the bots on X:

• @CMSpapers
• @ATLASpapers
• @LHCb_results

Follow on Mastodon:

• @[email protected]

Follow on BlueSky:

• @cmspapers.bsky.social

To get it to work as a bot, an auth.ini file containing information in the following format:

[CMS]
BOT_HANDLE = @CMS_results
CONSUMER_KEY = xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
CONSUMER_SECRET = xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
ACCESS_TOKEN = xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET = xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

For more details on authentication, refer to the Twitter Developer Platform.

For using the tool with a Mastodon bot, auth.ini should contain:

[CMS]
MASTODON_BOT_HANDLE = @[email protected]
MASTODON_ACCESS_TOKEN = xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

You can obtain the access token by creating a new application on your Mastodon account's application settings (here provided for mastodon.social).

For using the tool with a BlueSky bot, auth.ini should contain:

[CMS]
BLUESKY_HANDLE = cmspapers.bsky.social
BLUESKY_APP_PASSWORD = xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx

where BLUESKY_APP_PASSWORD is the password of the app you created in BlueSky.

For information on running the bot, do

python cds_paper_bot.py --help

Note: if this doesn't work on MacOS, make sure to brew install freetype imagemagick and export MAGICK_HOME=/opt/homebrew/opt/imagemagick.

Docker image

If you would like to run the bot in an isolated environment, e.g. on a Raspberry Pi, you can try to use the Dockerfile. Build the container using:

docker build -t cds_paper_bot .

Then run it from the repository directory:

docker run --rm -ti -v "$(pwd)":/home/app -w /home/app cds_paper_bot python cds_paper_bot.py

Deploying the bot to GitLab CI/CD

Using the CERN GitLab installation and its CI/CD capabilities, you can run the bot such that it regularly checks for new analyses. Follow the instructions here.