💡 Idea 2: AI News Page — ainews.aguidetocloud.com¶
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Priority | 📌 Important |
| Status | ✅ Complete |
| Category | 🎬 Content / 🎓 Learning Project |
| Date added | 2026-03-28 |
| Completed | 2026-03-28 |
| To-Do link | I2 on To-Do List |
The Original Idea¶
The Problem¶
AI is moving incredibly fast — new models, tools, and platforms launch almost daily. Without a dedicated news source, it's easy to miss important developments (e.g., missed OpenClaw for days until stumbling on it in a session). Manually reading news sites isn't sustainable.
The Idea¶
Build an automated AI news page at ainews.aguidetocloud.com that:
- Runs every night — an AI agent searches, researches, and summarises the latest AI news
- Categorises by provider — Microsoft, OpenAI, Google, Meta, Anthropic, open-source, etc.
- Short blurb for each item — quick summary so you can scan in 2 minutes
- Source links — click through to read the full article if interested
- Zero manual work — fully automated, just check the page each morning
Key Questions We Had¶
- How to fetch news? — RSS feeds, news APIs (NewsAPI, Bing News API), or web scraping?
- How to summarise? — Use Azure OpenAI / GPT to generate short blurbs from full articles
- Where to host? — Azure Static Web Apps (like the learning portal) with a custom subdomain
- How to automate? — Azure Functions (timer trigger), GitHub Actions (scheduled workflow), or a Logic App?
- How to avoid stale/duplicate content? — Dedupe by URL or headline, keep only last 48 hours
- Cost? — API calls for news + AI summarisation + hosting — estimate monthly cost
- Design — Clean, scannable layout — maybe cards per category, or a timeline view
Potential Benefits¶
- Never miss important AI developments again
- Quick morning scan instead of browsing 10+ different sites
- Great content source for YouTube videos ("This week in AI" format)
- Showcases Azure AI + automation skills — a practical demo for customers
- Could become a public resource for the aguidetocloud.com audience
✅ Project Documentation¶
This idea is complete! Full project documentation below.
Live Links¶
URL: ainews.aguidetocloud.com
Repo: github.com/susanthgit/-ainews
Built: March 2026 using GitHub Copilot CLI (Opus 4.6)
What Is It?¶
An automated AI news page that runs every night, fetches the latest AI news from multiple sources, generates short AI summaries, and publishes a slick retro-neon dashboard — all with zero manual work.
Check it every morning with your coffee ☕ and catch up on everything that happened in AI while you slept.
Architecture¶
RSS Feeds ──┐
├──▶ fetch_news.py ──▶ summarise.py ──▶ generate_page.py ──▶ index.html
NewsAPI ────┘ (articles) (GPT-4o mini) (retro HTML) (deployed)
GitHub Actions runs this pipeline nightly → commits output → deploys to Azure Static Web App
How It Works (Step by Step)¶
| Step | Script | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| 1️⃣ | fetch_news.py |
Fetches articles from 15 RSS feeds + NewsAPI, deduplicates, filters last 48 hours |
| 2️⃣ | summarise.py |
Sends each article to GPT-4o mini (via GitHub Models) for a 2-3 sentence summary |
| 3️⃣ | generate_page.py |
Renders a static HTML page with retro neon theme, sidebar nav, and category cards |
Tech Stack¶
| Component | Tool | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| News source 1 | RSS feeds (Microsoft, OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Meta, Hugging Face blogs) | 🆓 Free |
| News source 2 | NewsAPI.org (free tier, 100 requests/day) | 🆓 Free |
| AI summarisation | GitHub Models — GPT-4o mini | 🆓 Free (150 req/day on free plan) |
| Automation | GitHub Actions (nightly cron at midnight NZT) | 🆓 Free |
| Hosting | Azure Static Web Apps (free tier) | 🆓 Free |
| Custom domain | ainews.aguidetocloud.com (CNAME to SWA) | 🆓 Free |
Total estimated cost: under $2/month
The only potential cost is if you exceed GitHub Models free limits — which is unlikely with ~125 articles/day.
News Categories¶
The page is organised into 9 categories, with the most useful sections at the top:
| # | Category | What's Covered |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🔥 Top Stories | Biggest AI headlines from TechCrunch, The Verge, Ars Technica |
| 2 | 🗣️ Rumours & Gossip | Leaks, speculation, "reportedly" stories |
| 3 | 🟦 Microsoft | Copilot, Azure AI, Foundry, Windows AI |
| 4 | 🟩 OpenAI | GPT models, ChatGPT, API updates |
| 5 | Gemini, DeepMind, Vertex AI | |
| 6 | 🟪 Meta | Llama, open-source AI |
| 7 | 🟧 Anthropic | Claude, MCP protocol |
| 8 | ⬛ Open Source | Hugging Face, community models, frameworks |
| 9 | 🔵 Industry | Regulations, funding, trends, startups |
Page Features¶
📅 Daily / Weekly / Monthly Views¶
Not everyone checks every day, so the page generates three views:
| View | What it shows | URL |
|---|---|---|
| Today | Latest daily news | /index.html |
| This Week | Top stories from last 7 days | /weekly/latest.html |
| This Month | All stories from current month | /monthly/latest.html |
A navigation bar at the top lets you jump between views and browse previous days.
🎨 Retro Neon Theme¶
The design uses a dark, neon-glowing aesthetic matching the learning portal's style:
- Left sidebar — clickable category navigation with article counts
- Right sidebar — quick stats, trending topics, quick links, update info
- Cards — each article is a hoverable card with title, AI summary, source, and timestamp
- Responsive — sidebars hide on mobile, cards stack vertically
Azure Resources¶
All project resources live in a dedicated resource group:
| Resource | Type | Location | Tier |
|---|---|---|---|
aiNews-RG |
Resource Group | Australia East | — |
ainews-site |
Static Web App | East Asia | Free |
Why no Azure OpenAI?
We originally planned to use Azure OpenAI for AI summaries, but the lab subscription's security policy blocks API keys. We switched to GitHub Models instead — free, no key hassles, and the GITHUB_TOKEN in GitHub Actions just works.
GitHub Actions Workflow¶
The nightly pipeline (.github/workflows/nightly-news.yml) runs automatically:
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Schedule | 0 11 * * * (11:00 UTC = midnight NZT) |
| Trigger | Also supports manual trigger via "Run workflow" button |
| Runtime | Ubuntu, Python 3.12 |
| Secrets needed | NEWSAPI_KEY, AZURE_STATIC_WEB_APPS_API_TOKEN |
What Each Step Does¶
📥 Checkout repo
🐍 Set up Python 3.12
📦 Install dependencies (feedparser, openai, jinja2, etc.)
📡 Fetch news from RSS + NewsAPI
🤖 Summarise articles with GPT-4o mini
🎨 Generate HTML pages (daily + weekly + monthly)
💾 Commit generated files to repo
🚀 Deploy to Azure Static Web Apps
Key Files¶
ainews/
├── .github/workflows/
│ └── nightly-news.yml # Nightly GitHub Actions workflow
├── scripts/
│ ├── feeds.json # RSS feed URLs + categories config
│ ├── fetch_news.py # Step 1: fetch from RSS + NewsAPI
│ ├── summarise.py # Step 2: AI summarisation via GitHub Models
│ └── generate_page.py # Step 3: render HTML + archive + digests
├── templates/
│ ├── cards.html.j2 # Retro neon card layout (main design)
│ └── timeline.html.j2 # Alternative timeline layout
├── site/ # Generated output (auto-committed)
│ ├── index.html # Today's page
│ ├── archive/YYYY-MM-DD/ # Daily archives
│ ├── weekly/latest.html # Weekly digest
│ ├── monthly/latest.html # Monthly digest
│ └── data/YYYY-MM-DD.json # Archived article data
├── requirements.txt
└── README.md
What I Learned Building This¶
Key takeaways
- RSS feeds are underrated — most AI companies publish RSS. Free, reliable, no API key needed.
- GitHub Models is a hidden gem — free GPT-4o mini access with your GitHub token. Perfect for personal projects.
- Azure Static Web Apps free tier is generous — custom domain, SSL, and hosting for $0.
- GitHub Actions as a cron job — you don't need Azure Functions or Logic Apps for simple scheduled tasks.
- Bing News API is dead — retired August 2025. Replacement costs $35/1000 queries. RSS + NewsAPI is the way to go.
How to Add/Remove News Sources¶
Edit scripts/feeds.json in the repo. Each category has a list of RSS feeds and keywords:
{
"id": "microsoft",
"name": "Microsoft",
"emoji": "🟦",
"feeds": [
{ "name": "Microsoft AI Blog", "url": "https://blogs.microsoft.com/ai/feed/" }
],
"keywords": ["Microsoft Copilot", "Azure AI"]
}
Push the change — the nightly job picks it up automatically.
Future Enhancements¶
- [ ] Trending topics word cloud visualisation
- [ ] Email digest subscription (weekly summary in your inbox)
- [ ] "This Week in AI" YouTube video format using the weekly data
- [ ] Favourite/bookmark articles
- [ ] Dark/light theme toggle