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The board / Operating

AI Newsletter

Live · December 2024 Weekly, on AI for video labs.ei.au/subscribe

Researched, written, checked and sent by one function, every week.

Rails

  • aloneReadsThe week's news, through one Perplexity call.
  • not allowedWritesNothing of anyone else's is touched.
  • not allowedMoneyCosts cents. Charges nothing.
  • alonePublicLands in subscribers' inboxes unread by its author.
  • aloneUnattendedA cron, a function, an issue.
  • aloneDecidesNobody else. That is the point.

Problem

A weekly round-up is useful and nobody wants to write it every Sunday.

The pipeline had to be cheap enough to run forever and careful enough never to send a dead link.

System

A weekly schedule triggers one Perplexity sonar-pro call that researches and drafts the issue. Every link is verified, a header image is generated on Replicate, assets go to Cloud Storage and Mailchimp sends. By default the issue is sent. A link that fails the check is dropped from the issue.

Decisions

  1. One Perplexity sonar-pro call with structured output does the research and the writing. Fewer calls, fewer places to break.
  2. Every link is HEAD-checked and must sit on a trusted-domain allowlist, or it does not ship.
  3. Images via Replicate, assets in Cloud Storage, delivery via Mailchimp with UTM tags.

Stack

Python, Google Cloud Functions, Perplexity sonar-pro, Replicate, Google Cloud Storage, Mailchimp