morning-brief

Your indie hacker morning briefing — one glance, one focus, one question.

Pulls GitHub, your task list, and your reading queue into one 30-second morning brief. BYOK Claude. Works on any machine with Node 18+.

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Why

You wake up. You open GitHub. Then Linear. Then your bookmarks. Then Slack. Then your notes app. 20 minutes later you still haven't decided what to actually do today.

morning-brief pulls from every source you care about and asks Claude to write you a scannable brief:

1. One-line orientation — what IS today about?
2. Today's shape — compact section per source
3. What demands attention first — ranked, with "why now" reasons
4. What can wait — the noisy stuff that looks urgent but isn't
5. One question worth sitting with — based on the signal mix

Everything is BYOK (you bring your own Claude key). Nothing gets stored or sent anywhere but Claude.

Quick start

# 1. Install
npm install -g morning-brief

# 2. Set your Claude API key
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...   # https://console.anthropic.com/settings/keys

# 3. Plug in sources via env vars (or brief.json, see below)
export GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_...           # https://github.com/settings/tokens
export GITHUB_USER=your-username
export BURN_MCP_TOKEN=...             # from burn451.cloud → Settings → MCP Server

# 4. Brief me
morning-brief --output today.md

Or skip install:

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-... GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_... GITHUB_USER=foo \
  npx morning-brief

Supported sources

Work sources

Source	What it shows	Status
github	Open PRs (yours), assigned issues, review requests	✅ v0.1
tasks	Local JSON list of priorities / TODOs	✅ v0.1
calendar	Today's meetings, conflicts, prep time	🔜 v0.3
linear	Current sprint, assigned, blocking others	🔜 v0.3
slack	Threads waiting on you, unread DMs	🔜 v0.3

Reading sources (pick one — or wire multiple)

Source	What it shows	Status
burn	24h Flame countdown — articles about to expire, recent Vault	✅ v0.1
readwise	Reader queue (later/new/shortlist) + stale-unread signal	✅ v0.2
rss	Fresh items from feeds you care about (last 24h)	✅ v0.2
urls	Plain text file of URLs — the zero-service fallback	✅ v0.2
raindrop	Favorites + collections + highlights	🔜 v0.3
karakeep	Self-hosted bookmarks + tags	🔜 v0.3
pocket	RIP 2025 — use Readwise (Pocket imports land there)	⚰️ never

Any reading source works. Use Readwise, an RSS feed, or a plain text file — morning-brief adapts the brief to what signal the source provides. Burn brings the most (24h urgency, kept vs. burned triage), but the tool is not Burn-only.

Configuration

Two ways to configure — mix freely.

1. Env vars (quickest)

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...
export GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_...
export GITHUB_USER=Fisher521
# Pick one reading source:
export BURN_MCP_TOKEN=...                        # burn451.cloud → Settings → MCP
export READWISE_TOKEN=...                        # readwise.io/access_token
export MORNING_BRIEF_URLS=/path/to/reading.txt   # or plain text file
# Optional:
export MORNING_BRIEF_TASKS=/path/to/tasks.json

2. brief.json (persistent, project-local)

{
  "anthropic_api_key": "sk-ant-...",
  "sources": {
    "github": {
      "enabled": true,
      "token": "ghp_...",
      "user": "Fisher521"
    },
    "burn":     { "enabled": true, "token": "..." },
    "readwise": { "enabled": false, "token": "...", "location": "later" },
    "rss":      { "enabled": false, "feeds": ["https://simonwillison.net/atom/everything/"], "hours": 24 },
    "urls":     { "enabled": false, "file": "./reading.txt" },
    "tasks":    { "enabled": true, "file": "./tasks.json" }
  }
}

morning-brief looks for ./brief.json first, then ~/.morning-brief.json.

tasks.json format (any of these work)

["Ship morning-brief v0.1", "Write weekly digest post", "Refactor auth middleware"]

Or with metadata:

[
  { "title": "Ship morning-brief v0.1", "priority": "P0", "due": "2026-04-14" },
  { "title": "Write weekly digest post", "priority": "P1" },
  { "title": "Refactor auth middleware", "priority": "P2", "notes": "blocked on auth team" }
]

Or grouped:

{ "priorities": [...], "someday": [...] }

Usage

morning-brief [options]

Options:

Flag	Default	Description
--config=<path>	./brief.json, then ~/.morning-brief.json	Config file
--output=<path>	stdout	Write brief to file
--dry-run	—	Print assembled prompt, skip LLM call
--help	—	Show help

Examples

Daily cron (local launchd / systemd / cron)

# crontab -e
0 7 * * * /usr/local/bin/morning-brief --output ~/brief/$(date +\%F).md

GitHub Action — daily brief to repo

# .github/workflows/morning-brief.yml
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 12 * * *'   # 7am EST
  workflow_dispatch:
jobs:
  brief:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: npx morning-brief --output brief-$(date +%F).md
        env:
          ANTHROPIC_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          GITHUB_USER: ${{ github.repository_owner }}
          BURN_MCP_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.BURN_MCP_TOKEN }}
      - run: |
          git config user.name "morning-brief"
          git config user.email "bot@users.noreply.github.com"
          git add brief-*.md
          git commit -m "brief: $(date +%F)" && git push

Pipe to Slack / email

morning-brief | slack-cli post --channel=self
morning-brief | mail -s "Morning brief" me@example.com

How it works

1. Each adapter (src/sources/<name>.mjs) fetches from one source and returns a normalized signal.
2. All signals get stapled into one prompt.
3. Claude writes the brief — structured, scannable, opinionated about what matters first.

No storage, no server, no account. Just env vars → API calls → markdown.

Roadmap

• v0.1 — GitHub + Burn + tasks adapters, Claude synthesis
• v0.2 — Readwise + RSS + urls-file reading sources (pluralize reading)
• v0.3 — Calendar (Google/iCal), Linear, Slack, Raindrop, Karakeep
• v0.4 — Output formats: HTML email, TTS podcast, Telegram push
• v0.5 — MCP server wrapper: morning-brief becomes a tool Claude/Cursor can call on demand

Contributing

PRs welcome — especially new source adapters. Each adapter:

• Lives in src/sources/<name>.mjs
• Exports an async collect<Name>(config) function
• Returns { source: '<name>', items: ..., summary: {...} } or throws

See src/sources/github.mjs for the simplest example.

About

Built by @hawking520 — exploring AI-era content & attention workflows in public.

Part of an open ecosystem:

• Burn — reading triage MCP server (26 tools)
• reading-digest — weekly digest from your bookmarks
• morning-brief — this

License

MIT — see LICENSE