macmini-watch

A tiny GitHub Actions cron that watches Apple's Certified Refurbished store for an M4 Mac mini at-or-below a target price and pings a Slack channel when one shows up.

Runs every ~10 minutes, dedupes hits so you don't get spammed, and shuts up entirely when there's no inventory. Roughly 100 lines of Python with no dependencies.

How it works

1. check.py fetches https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac/mac-mini.
2. Parses the page for listings that mention "Mac mini" + "M4" with a price at-or-below PRICE_CAP.
3. Compares against state.json (committed back to the repo each run) so duplicate listings only alert once.
4. POSTs new hits to a Slack incoming webhook.

GitHub Actions cron is best-effort and typically lands every 10–20 minutes — fine for refurb watch, not fine if you need sub-minute polling.

Setup

1. Fork this repo (or use it as a template).
2. Create a Slack incoming webhook:
   • https://api.slack.com/apps → Create New App → From scratch
   • Activate Incoming Webhooks → Add New Webhook to Workspace → pick the channel
   • Copy the URL (looks like https://hooks.slack.com/services/...)
3. Add the webhook as a repo secret:
   • Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions → New repository secret
   • Name: SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL
   • Value: the webhook URL
4. (Optional) Tune the price cap:
   • Edit the PRICE_CAP env var in .github/workflows/macmini.yml
   • Default is 600
5. (Optional) Tag a Slack user on real hits:
   • Add a repo secret SLACK_MENTION_USER_IDS with one or more Slack user IDs (e.g. U07PCFNRLH3 or U07PCFNRLH3,U08ABCDE123).
   • All Slack messages (including test pings) will be prefixed with <@user> mentions.
6. The cron starts on its own once pushed.

Manual test ping

Confirms the webhook is wired up without waiting for inventory.

Actions tab → Mac Mini stock watch → Run workflow → check Send a Slack test ping and exit → Run.

You should see a :rotating_light: Mac mini $X hit — TEST message in your Slack channel within a few seconds.

Local dry-run

SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL="" python3 check.py

Empty webhook = dry-run. The script logs what it would have posted to stderr instead of actually posting.

Adapting it

This is purpose-built for Apple Refurb Mac mini M4. To watch a different product:

• Change the URL and the regex in check_apple_refurb() to match the new page.
• Apple's refurb site is server-rendered HTML, which makes parsing trivial. Other retailers (Amazon, Best Buy) heavily block GitHub Actions IPs with 503s and CAPTCHAs — a previous version of this repo tried and gave up. If you need those, expect to use a third-party scraping service.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.