Botmation Documentation

Time

Wait

This BotAction pauses for the time provided before the next BotAction assembled runs.

const wait = (milliseconds: number): BotAction => async() => {
  await sleep(milliseconds)
}

Example:

await chain(
  goTo('https://google.com'),
  wait(5000), // wait 5 seconds before going to duckduckgo.com
  goTo('https://duckduckgo.com')
)(page)

Schedule

Schedule assembled BotActions for a single event in the future or a re-occuring one.

Similar to the BotActions from Loops and Branching, the Schedule BotAction will run assembled BotActions in a pipe.

const schedule =
  (schedule: string|Date) =>
    (...actions: BotAction<any>[]): BotAction<any> =>
      async(page, ...injects) => {
        let timeUntilScheduleInMilliSeconds
        if (isDate(schedule)) {
          timeUntilScheduleInMilliSeconds = schedule.getTime() - Date.now()
          if (timeUntilScheduleInMilliSeconds > 0) {
            await sleep(timeUntilScheduleInMilliSeconds)

            return pipe()(...actions)(page, ...injects)
          }
        } else {
          const cron = parseCronExpression(schedule)

          while(true) {
            timeUntilScheduleInMilliSeconds = cron.getNextDate(new Date(Date.now())).getTime() - Date.now()
            await sleep(timeUntilScheduleInMilliSeconds)

            const returnValue = await pipe()(...actions)(page, ...injects)

            if (isAbortLineSignal(returnValue)) {
              return processAbortLineSignal(returnValue)
            }
          }
        }
      }

Takes either a cron schedule expression like * * * * * to schedule a re-occuring event or a future Date instance to schedule a 1-time event.

Quick & simple editor for cron schedule expressions crontab guru

When using a cron expression, it's recommended to include aborting logic in the assembled BotActions, to exit the schedule, otherwise it will schedule indefinitely. This does not apply to 1-time events scheduled with a Date.

This function either assembles a line of BotAction's with each schedule iteration, or it assembles a line of BotActions for a 1-time event. Therefore, it has advanced aborting behavior to give granular control. Here's a table to understand the effects AbortLineSignal's have with varying assembledLines counts:

assembledLines	input	effect
1+	Date	breaks assembled BotActions and returns
1	cron	breaks assembled BotActions of current schedule, but not the subsequent scheduled BotAction lines
2+	cron	breaks assembled BotActions of current schedule, then stops the cron job, exiting the scheduling loop

Example:

// Like posts every sunday at 7am
await schedule('0 7 * * sun')(
  goTo('http://example.com'),
  givenThat(isGuest)(
    login('username', 'password'),
  ),
  likePosts
)(page)

Helpers

sleep()

This async function returns a Promise that does not resolve until the time provided lapses.

const sleep = async(milliseconds: number): Promise<NodeJS.Timeout> =>
  new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, milliseconds))

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Botmation Documentation

Time

Time

Wait

Schedule

Helpers

sleep()

Scrapers

Roadmap

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