auto-news-station

Polygun Sniper Bot

PPP TV Auto Poster

Automated news-to-social pipeline for PPP TV Kenya. Scrapes the PPP TV website directly, generates branded 1080×1350 (4:5) portrait images in the style of Rap TV / WorldStar, and posts to Instagram and Facebook — fully automated via a Cloudflare Worker cron every 10 minutes.

How it works

Cloudflare Worker fires every 10 minutes
Scrapes ppptv-v2.vercel.app directly (no RSS) — gets the ONE latest article
Checks Cloudflare KV — if already posted, skips
Calls Vercel /api/automate (authenticated with AUTOMATE_SECRET)
Vercel generates a branded 4:5 image + formats captions
Posts to Instagram and Facebook via Graph API

Image template design

Inspired by Rap TV, WorldStar, and Polymarket’s social graphics:

4:5 ratio — 1080×1350px (optimal for Instagram feed + Facebook)
Full-bleed photo — article thumbnail fills the entire frame, cropped to top (faces)
Gradient overlay — transparent at top, fades to solid black at ~85% down. Photo bleeds through the transition naturally
Category pill — white background, black bold text, rounded corners, sits at the gradient start
Headline — Bebas Neue (the exact font used by Rap TV). All caps, ultra-tight leading (0.92). Key nouns/names in PPP TV red-orange (#E8401C), connectors in white
Subtitle — small italic, 72% white opacity
PPP TV logo — top-left, crown + “PPP” white + “TV” gold + “KENYA” tagline, semi-transparent dark backing

Brand colors (from PPP TV logo)

Color	Hex	Usage
Red-orange	`#E8401C`	Accent words in headline
Gold	`#F5A623`	“TV” in logo, crown icon
White	`#FFFFFF`	Connector words, logo text
Black	`#000000`	Background, category pill text

Font

Bebas Neue — the industry-standard condensed display font for news graphics. All-caps, zero descenders, ultra-tight tracking. Same font used by Rap TV, WorldStarHipHop, and major news stations globally.

Stack

Layer	Tech
App / API	Next.js 14 on Vercel
Cron trigger	Cloudflare Worker (every 10 min)
Deduplication	Cloudflare KV (`SEEN_ARTICLES`)
Image generation	Satori + Sharp (1080×1350 JPEG)
Social posting	Meta Graph API (Instagram + Facebook)
Scraping	Direct HTML scrape (no RSS, no external deps)

Project structure

src/
  app/
    page.tsx                  # Dashboard UI with live preview
    api/
      automate/route.ts       # Main POST endpoint (called by CF Worker)
      dry-run/route.ts        # Test scraper + image gen without posting
      preview-image/route.ts  # Preview image template in browser
  lib/
    scraper.ts                # Direct HTML scraper (ppptv-v2.vercel.app)
    image-gen.ts              # Satori + Sharp — 4:5 Bebas Neue template
    formatter.ts              # Caption formatter with hashtags
    publisher.ts              # Instagram + Facebook Graph API
    dedup.ts                  # Cloudflare KV deduplication
    types.ts                  # Shared TypeScript interfaces
cloudflare/
  worker.js                   # Cloudflare Worker with 10-min cron
  wrangler.toml               # Worker config + KV binding

Environment variables

Set in Vercel project settings:

Variable	Description
`AUTOMATE_SECRET`	Shared secret between CF Worker and Vercel
`INSTAGRAM_ACCESS_TOKEN`	Meta long-lived user access token
`INSTAGRAM_ACCOUNT_ID`	Instagram Business Account ID
`FACEBOOK_ACCESS_TOKEN`	Meta page access token
`FACEBOOK_PAGE_ID`	Facebook Page ID

Cloudflare Worker secrets

wrangler secret put VERCEL_APP_URL   # https://auto-news-station.vercel.app
wrangler secret put AUTOMATE_SECRET  # same as Vercel env var

Preview the image template in browser:

GET /api/preview-image
GET /api/preview-image?title=YOUR+HEADLINE&category=CELEBRITY
GET /api/preview-image?title=HEADLINE&category=NEWS&imageUrl=https://...

Dry run (scrape + image gen, no posting):

GET /api/dry-run

Dashboard

Live at https://auto-news-station.vercel.app

Click “Fetch Live Articles + Preview Images” to pull real articles
Click any article card to see the generated 4:5 image
Click the image to open fullscreen lightbox
Shows caption character counts for Instagram and Facebook