Static website tracker

Dumb static website modification tracker. The first time you run it against a website it stores the source. Every next time it runs a diff and reports any changes.

TLDR

This is like a diff run as a crontab than sends an email.

Running

To run it directly from Typescript:

npx ts-node index.ts -a <website url>

To transpile and run from Javascript:

npx tsc
node index.js -a <website url>

Example output:

$ node index.js -a http://example.com
Writing initial /path/to/static-website-tracker/diff/f0e6a6a97042a4f1f1c87f5f7d44315b2d852c2df5c7991cc66241bf7072d1c4 file for http://example.com.
$ node index.js --urls
http://example.com
$ node index.js http://example.com
No differences detected for http://example.com.
$ node index.js http://example.com
-    <title>Example Website</title>

+    <title>Example Domain</title>

-    <h1>Example Website</h1>
    <p>This website is for use in illustrative examples in documents. You may use this
    webite in literature without prior coordination or asking for permission.</p>

+    <h1>Example Domain</h1>
    <p>This domain is for use in illustrative examples in documents. You may use this
    domain in literature without prior coordination or asking for permission.</p>

Changes detected and rewriting /path/to/static-website-tracker/diff/f0e6a6a97042a4f1f1c87f5f7d44315b2d852c2df5c7991cc66241bf7072d1c4 file for http://example.com.

Continuous running

Below is setup for using pm2 to do continuous running with email sent on change.

First you need to set proper mail settings in scheduler.ts. You need to provide:

• SMTP host (smtp.example.com)
• SMTP port (587)
• From address ([email protected])
• To address ([email protected])

Then add some URLs to track:

npx tsc
node index.js <website url 1>
node index.js <website url 2>

Then setup pm2 to do scheduled running:

node install -g pm2
pm2 start scheduler.js --name "static-website-tracker" --log-date-format 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss.SSS'
pm2 save

Proxy

Uses PAC_PROXY if it exists (should be a URL to a PAC-script). Secondly uses HTTPS_PROXY if it exists. Otherwise uses no proxy.

License

Released under MIT. See LICENSE file.