PulsePost

AI-powered article pipeline — monitors trending AI topics, generates articles in Harry's voice, seeks approval, and publishes to the blog automatically.

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Phase 2 — Azure Functions Pipeline

Event-driven, fully automated pipeline running on Azure. Code complete — deploy via deploy.yml and Bicep.

flowchart TD
    A([Sunday 8am AEST\nScheduler timer]) -->|Service Bus: fetch-topics| B
    TG([Telegram: /generate]) -->|HTTP webhook| WH

    subgraph AZ [Azure Function App — pulsepost-func]
        WH[TelegramWebhook] -->|Service Bus: fetch-topics| B
        B[FetchTopics] -->|Service Bus: generate-article| C
        C[GenerateArticle] -->|saves to Table Storage| DS[(ArticleDrafts\nTable Storage)]
        C -->|Service Bus: post-article on APPROVE| D
        D[PostArticle]
        WH -->|EDIT: rewrite via OpenAI,\nupdate Table Storage| DS
        WH -->|REJECT: update status| DS
    end

    C --> TG2[Telegram: draft preview\nAPPROVE / REJECT / EDIT]
    TG2 --> TGR{Harry replies\non Telegram}
    TGR -->|APPROVE| WH
    TGR -->|REJECT| WH
    TGR -->|EDIT feedback| WH
    D --> TG3[Telegram: PR link\n+ X thread + image prompt]
    D --> PR[PR on harry-zhao-au.github.io]

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Azure Resources (resource group pulsepost-rg, region australiaeast):

• pulsepost-func — Function App (.NET 8 isolated, Consumption Y1)
• pulsepost-bus — Service Bus Namespace (Basic, 3 queues: fetch-topics, generate-article, post-article)
• pulsepostsa — Storage Account (ArticleDrafts table)
• pulsepost-ai — Application Insights
• pulsepost-law — Log Analytics Workspace
• pulsepost-plan — App Service Plan (Y1 Consumption)

Infrastructure deploy — manually via Azure Portal Cloud Shell:

az group create --name pulsepost-rg --location australiaeast
az deployment group create --resource-group pulsepost-rg --template-file bicep/main.bicep --parameters @parameters.json

Corporate firewall blocks management.azure.com — always deploy from Cloud Shell or hotspot, not from a local terminal.

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Phase 1 — GitHub Actions Pipeline

Simpler pipeline running entirely on GitHub Actions. Approval happens via GitHub Issue comments; Telegram is notification-only.

flowchart TD
    A([Sunday 8am AEST\nor manual trigger]) --> GEN

    subgraph GEN [generate.yml — GitHub Actions]
        direction TB
        F1[fetch_topics.py] -->|topics.json| F2[generate_article.py]
        F2 -->|draft.json| F3[create_issue.py]
    end

    F1 -.->|scrapes| SRC
    subgraph SRC [Topic Sources]
        direction TB
        S1[Hacker News top 200]
        S2[Company Blogs — Anthropic · OpenAI · Google DeepMind · Meta AI · Microsoft AI]
        S3[Reddit — r/MachineLearning · r/LocalLLaMA]
        S4[YouTube RSS — 7 AI channels]
        S5[arXiv cs.AI]
        S6[Existing blog posts — dedup]
    end

    F2 -.->|Azure OpenAI GPT-4o| OUT
    subgraph OUT [Generated per run]
        direction TB
        O1[Article 800–1200 words in Harry's voice]
        O2[X Thread 6–8 tweets]
        O3[Cover image prompt]
    end

    F3 --> ISS[GitHub Issue created\nlabel: pending-approval]
    F3 --> TG1[Telegram notification\nwith preview + issue link]

    ISS --> CMD{Harry comments\non GitHub Issue}

    subgraph APPR [handle-approval.yml — GitHub Actions]
        CMD -->|APPROVE| AP[Commit article to blog _posts/\n+ Open PR on harry-zhao-au.github.io]
        CMD -->|REJECT| RJ[Close issue — rejected]
        CMD -->|EDIT feedback| ED[Rewrite article + X thread\nvia Azure OpenAI → update issue]
    end

    AP --> TG2[Telegram: PR link\n+ X thread — post manually\n+ image prompt — generate manually]
    RJ --> TG3[Telegram: Draft rejected]
    ED --> TG4[Telegram: Revised preview]
    TG4 --> CMD

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Post-approval manual steps:

• X Thread — copy from Telegram and post on X
• Cover image — use the image prompt with DALL-E, upload to assets/images/ in the blog repo, update front matter, then merge the PR

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CI/CD

Workflow	Trigger	Phase	Purpose
generate.yml	Sunday 8am AEST + manual	Phase 1	Fetch topics → generate draft → create issue + Telegram
handle-approval.yml	GitHub Issue comment	Phase 1	Handle APPROVE / REJECT / EDIT
deploy.yml	Push to src/**	Phase 2	Build and deploy Function App to Azure
infra.yml	Manual — Azure Portal Cloud Shell	Phase 2	Bicep infra deploy — not auto-triggered

Secrets Required

Secret	Used in	Description
GH_PAT	Both	GitHub Personal Access Token (repo scope)
AZURE_OPENAI_ENDPOINT	Both	Azure OpenAI instance URL
AZURE_OPENAI_KEY	Both	Azure OpenAI API key
AZURE_OPENAI_DEPLOYMENT	Both	GPT-4o deployment name (default: gpt-4o)
TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN	Both	Telegram bot token from @BotFather
TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID	Both	Your Telegram chat ID
AZURE_PUBLISH_PROFILE	Phase 2	Publish profile from pulsepost-func Azure Portal

Project Structure

PulsePost/
├── scripts/                   # Phase 1 — Python pipeline (GitHub Actions)
│   ├── fetch_topics.py        # Scrapes HN, blogs, Reddit, YouTube, arXiv
│   ├── generate_article.py    # Topic selection + article + X thread + image prompt
│   ├── create_issue.py        # GitHub Issue creation + Telegram notification
│   └── handle_approval.py     # APPROVE / REJECT / EDIT handling
├── src/PulsePost.Functions/   # Phase 2 — Azure Functions (.NET 8 isolated) — built
│   ├── Functions/             # Scheduler, TelegramWebhook, FetchTopics, GenerateArticle, PostArticle
│   ├── Services/              # OpenAI, Telegram, TopicFetch, DraftStorage, Publish
│   └── host.json
├── bicep/                     # Phase 2 — Azure infrastructure (Bicep)
│   └── main.bicep
├── .github/workflows/
│   ├── generate.yml           # Phase 1 — scheduled generation
│   ├── handle-approval.yml    # Phase 1 — issue comment handler
│   ├── deploy.yml             # Phase 2 — Function App deploy
│   └── infra.yml              # Phase 2 — Bicep deploy (manual only)
└── terraform/                 # Legacy — replaced by Bicep