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Part 5 of 7 · Daily briefing bot series ~3 min read

How you change what the bot watches

Your interests change. So does the list of sources worth reading. The bot is built so you can update either one in 30 seconds without touching code, opening a terminal, or deploying anything.

Key takeaways

  • Two Drive docs are the whole interface: a sources file (one URL per line) and a topic file (plain English).
  • Saving a doc pings a sync worker that validates the new content before promoting it.
  • If a change is broken, the old version stays live and you get a comment in the doc explaining why.
  • Both robots read the latest config on every run — tomorrow’s digest reflects today’s edit.
  • No deploy, no terminal, no admin panel; configuration is as easy to change as a shopping list.
Drive-as-config: edit a doc, the bot picks up the change At the top, a Drive folder containing two files: a sources file with one URL per line, and a topic file describing what you care about in plain English. An arrow leads down to a Sync step, which validates the change. From the Sync step, two arrows: one curves back up to the Drive folder labeled “comment-back if broken” (the old version stays live in that case); the other continues down, labeled “if valid”, to a Config store. From the Config store, two arrows fan out to the bottom — one to the Ingestor and one to the Ranker. A bottom note reads: edit a doc, save, tomorrow’s digest reflects the change. No deploy, no waiting. Drive folder two short docs sources · one URL per line topic · what you care about on save Sync & validate parses content, runs safety checks comment-back if broken if valid Config store latest sources, latest topic Ingestor reads the source list Ranker reads your topic Edit a doc, save, tomorrow’s digest reflects the change. No deploy, no waiting.
Fig 5. The bot reads its config from Drive. The dashed loop is the safety net: bad changes never go live.
  • App integration
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  • App integration
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  • People
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  • App integration
  • Machine learning
  • People
  • Outside AWS
  • App integration
  • Machine learning
  • People
  • Outside AWS
  • App integration
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Two files you edit

In a small Drive folder are two short documents:

  • sources — a list of links, one per line. Optionally a tag for source type (feed, service, or page).
  • topic — a paragraph or two describing what you actually care about. Plain English. The ranker reads this every morning when scoring items.

That’s the entire interface. No dashboard, no admin panel. You already know how to edit a Doc.

What happens when you save

The moment you save either file, Drive pings the cloud. A small worker pulls the new version, makes sure it parses (URLs are URLs, the topic isn’t empty), and saves it to a place both robots read from. The next morning’s run picks it up automatically.

You don’t deploy anything. You don’t need to know it worked. Tomorrow’s digest will just behave differently.

If you break something

If you paste a malformed URL or accidentally clear the topic, the safety check stops the bad version from going live. The old version stays in use. You get a small note back in the doc explaining what looked wrong — “line 8 isn’t a valid URL”, “topic file is empty”.

Fix the typo, save again, same flow. No downtime, no panic.

In plain words

Edit a Drive doc. Save. Tomorrow’s digest reflects your change. No git push, no deploy, no waiting on anyone. The bot’s configuration is exactly as easy to change as a shopping list — because that’s what it is.

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