Task Automation Tool

Schedule your python scripts in a reliable way. No more cronjobs!

Usage of the tool

Often, it is very usefull to be able to execute a same task every day/hour, in a repeated way, in order to backup data for instance or mesure values. The "Task Automation Tool" is meant to be run on a computer, that is powered on 24/7.

Each task, that the server should execute on a regular basis, is defined by a single folder in the "Tasks" directory:

How to create a new Task:

To create a new task, you will need to create a subdirectory in "Tasks" with following structure:

Tasks
↳ TASKNAME
  ↳ main.py
  ↳ config.ini
  ↳ requirements.txt
  ↳ Output
    ↳ ...

Each file has a specific role:

• main.py: This file will contain the code to be run by the program. It has to contain at least two predefined functions, used by the scheduler:

  • main(): This function is run everytime the task is triggered.
    
  • initialize(): This function returns a string and can be used to initialize values. The returned string is written to the logs and makes sure that this task has been sucessfully loaded.

• config.ini: This file will contain two main sections, each containing different important fields for the scheduler to be able to configure the task execution:

  • "EveryXMinutes" (in "Frequency" section): This field takes a positive integer, representing the amount of minutes, that have to pass between two executions of the task.
  • "AllowedFrom" (in "Frequency" section): This field takes a time of format HH:MM, and it indicates the beginning of the period, where the task is allowed to be run.
  • "AllowedTo" (in "Frequency" section): This field takes a time of format HH:MM, and it indicates the end of the period, where the task is allowed to be run.
    
    
  • "Enabled" (in "Global" section): This field takes a value ("True"/"False") and indicates, wether a task should be loaded by the scheduler at program start.
  • "Testing" (in "Global" section): This field takes a value ("True"/"False") and indicates, wether a task should be run normally or in test mode (=only logging a run confirmation but no "main" function execution).
  • "RunOnStartup" (in "Global" section): This field takes a value ("True"/"False") and indicates, wether a task should be auto run once at scheduler launch/startup.

• requirements.txt: This file will contain a list of all python modules, that pip need to install, in order to be able to run this specific task. The file should be compatible with the command pip install -r requirements.txt.

• Ouput: This is a folder, that the main.py file should automatically generate, if it needs to output some files (for instance results of a backup / test).

It is possible for the user to use several files/modules, for instance a file called "module1.py" can be added in the subdirectory. In order to be able to import it, following import statement has to be used in the main.py file:

import Tasks.TASKNAME.module1 as module1

Example task 1: "SpotifyBackup"

This sample task (that I had in use for over a year on my local instance), allows the user to regurlarly (for instance once a day) make a backup of all songs inside of the "Liked Songs Playlist" and the "Mix of the week". Through this approach, songs can be persisted (as the Mix of the Week is deleted at the start of each week and replaced with new songs).

The main task is in the main function (execute subfunction), and allows the user to replace the "PLAYLIST_SHARE_LINK" by his own link for any playlist (for instance the Mix of the Week).

The configuration of the Task in the "config.ini" file indicates that the Task should be run every 24 hours, but between the time of 2 to 4 AM (to ensure to use the internet when least used in the day on average). Furthermore, the task is active, not in test mode and does not run on startup of the Task Automation tool.

All the dependencies required by python are located in the "requirements.txt" file, which are automatically installed by the Task Automation tool.

How to terminate the program (for maintenance for instance)

python3 terminate.py

How to start the program using SSH on a remote machine

tmux
python3 main.py
tmux detach
exit