DailyDiff: Ethical GitHub Streak Automation

Introduction

The "GitHub Streak" has evolved from a fun gamification metric into a source of pressure for many developers. Missing a single day due to illness, travel, or researching (non-code work) can break a year-long chain.

DailyDiff acts as a fail-safe mechanism. It is an "Ethical Streak Maintainer" that ensures your profile remains active by automating legitimate, low-touch contributions (like documentation updates or log rotations) when you are unable to push code manually.

System Architecture

The application follows a decoupled client-server architecture to handle secure authentication and background scheduling.

Core Stack

Frontend: React (Vite) for the dashboard and configuration.
Backend: Node.js (Express) for API handling.
Database: Supabase (PostgreSQL) for storing user tokens and preferences.
Scheduler: node-cron for precise time-based execution.

Data Flow

User Authorization: User logs in via GitHub OAuth.
Token Storage: Access tokens are encrypted and stored in Supabase.
Schedule Configuration: User sets a "Safety Window" (e.g., "Check activity at 11:00 PM").
Cron Execution: The server wakes up, checks the user's activity for the day via GitHub API.
Conditional Push: If (and only if) no contributions are found, a micro-commit is generated.

Technical Implementation

The Automation Engine

The heart of the system is the node-cron scheduler which orchestrates the checking process without constant server uptime requirements for the client.

import cron from 'node-cron';
import { checkUserActivity, pushSafetyCommit } from './github-service';

// Schedule task to run every day at 23:00 UTC
cron.schedule('0 23 * * *', async () => {
  console.log('Initializing DailyDiff Safety Protocol...');
  
  const activeUsers = await supabase.from('users').select('*').eq('is_active', true);
  
  for (const user of activeUsers) {
    const hasContributed = await checkUserActivity(user.github_username);
    
    if (!hasContributed) {
      console.log(`No activity detected for ${user.github_username}. Engaging safety protocol.`);
      await pushSafetyCommit(user.access_token);
    } else {
      console.log(`${user.github_username} is safe. No action required.`);
    }
  }
});

GitHub API Integration

To determine if a commit is necessary, we query the GraphQL API to fetch the user's contribution calendar for the specific date.

query($username: String!) {
  user(login: $username) {
    contributionsCollection {
      contributionCalendar {
        totalContributions
        weeks {
          contributionDays {
            contributionCount
            date
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Challenges & Solutions

1. Token Expiration

Challenge: GitHub OAuth tokens have finite lifespans.
Solution: Implemented a token refresh rotation strategy in Supabase. When a cron job encounters a 401 error, it flags the user profile for re-authentication and sends a notification email via Resend.

2. "Empty" Commit Ethics

Challenge: Creating empty commits can be seen as "cheating."
Solution: DailyDiff enforces an "Ethical Mode." Instead of blank commits, it updates a daily-log.md file in a specialized repository with a timestamp and a quote, ensuring the contribution represents actual data modification.

Future Roadmap

AI Summaries: Integrate Gemini to generate a summary of the week's research papers read (instead of just a timestamp).
Multi-Platform Support: Extend streak protection to GitLab and Bitbucket.