Gmail -> Wordpress (WP) Pipeline

IN ACTIVE DEVELOPMENT!

Creates wordpress posts from Gmail emails. Built in order to create news items in the UC Davis Library intranet from emails sent to library-wide distribution lists.

The general process works as follows:

• Emails retrieved from a Gmail address using Gmail API
• If email is not from specified distribution list (see config.js), it is skipped
• If sender is not a user in WP instance:
  • If in Library IAM system, a WP user account is created
  • Else, message will be posted as Service Account
• Any attachments are uploaded to WP media library
• If message has event invite, details of event are added to message body
• src of any embedded images are updated with WP media url
• Any other attachments are listed in message body with WP media url
• Message is created as a WP post
• A label is applied to Gmail message marking that is has been processed, so that it is not picked up in future runs
• Any emails older than specified threshold are deleted from Gmail inbox

DEV TODO:

• Figure out how departments will be tagged once the intranet project progresses that far
• Handle non-personal email addresses
  • Right now, they will get posted as the service account if not in our IAM system.
  • Won't be that many... Could make a wp account for them ahead of time, but then they also need to get tagged with the appropriate department
• Create service account for intranet. ensure that application password functionality of api works with oidc. might need to get oauth token?
• Determine retention policy for posts in wp. delete all older than policy.

Local Development

• Build local image with ./devops/cmds/build-local-dev.sh
• Get GC service account creds with ./devops/cmds/get-gc-sa-creds.sh
• Get env file with ./devops/cmds/get-env.sh -l
• Verify that env in devops/compose/gmail-wp-pipeline-local-dev looks good
• Bring container up with cd devops/compose/gmail-wp-pipeline-local-dev and docker compose up -d
• By default the container is idle in local development, so you will have to manually start the main process with docker compose exec app bash and node ./server.js
• And then in another terminal manually run the script with docker compose exec app bash and node ./cli.js run -w

Getting a refresh token

There should be an offline refresh token in the env file in GC, which will remain valid so long as:

• It is actively used at least once in six months
• The user does not revoke access in their Google account settings
• A new refresh token is requested, which invalidates the old one

If the token is invalidated, follow these steps to get a new one:

• Run authorize-gmail cli command
• Go to authorization link provided, and go through approval process
• Google will redirect you to localhost. Copy the code url param.
• Enter the code url param into get-gmail-refresh-token command.
• Copy this refresh token into env file
• Restart app

Resources

• Google Oauth2
• Node gmail client