Monitor Aiven documentation changes with GitHub Actions

Set up automated monitoring of the Aiven documentation to track changes and get notifications when content is updated.

To monitor the Aiven documentation for changes, set up an automated GitHub Actions workflow in your own personal or company account.

Benefits of automated monitoring

By setting this up, you gain three major advantages over checking the site manually:

• Diff history: Because the script commits the new version to your repository, you can click the Commits tab in GitHub to see a line-by-line comparison of what was added or removed.
• Zero noise: You only get a Slack ping when a functional change is made to the document map.
• LLM ready: If you use AI to manage your Aiven services, you can point your AI tool (like an MCP server) at your current_llms.txt to ensure it always has the most recent documentation context.

Set up automated monitoring

Create a monitoring repository

You need a home repository for your monitor. This repository stores the script and a history of the llms.txt file so you can see exactly what changed over time.

1. Log into GitHub and create a repository, for example, aiven-docs-monitor.
2. Set this to Private if you don't want others to see your monitoring activity.

Set up notifications

Rather than checking GitHub manually for changes, set up notifications to receive automatic alerts when changes are detected.

Set up Slack notifications

Use a Slack webhook:

1. Create an Incoming Webhook in your Slack workspace.
2. In your GitHub repository, go to Settings > Secrets and variables > Actions.
3. Click New repository secret and name it SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL. Paste your webhook link as the value.

Set up email notifications

Configure SMTP credentials:

1. Set up an email account for sending notifications:

   • Use an existing Gmail account, or create a new one specifically for notifications.
   • For Gmail, you'll need to create an App Password rather than using your regular password.

2. Create the App Password for Gmail:

   • Go to your Google Account settings.
   • Navigate to Security > 2-Step Verification > App passwords.
   • Select Mail and Other (Custom name).
   • Enter Aiven Docs Monitor as the name.
   • Copy the generated 16-character password.

3. Configure GitHub secrets:

   • In your GitHub repository, go to Settings > Secrets and variables > Actions.
   • Click New repository secret and add:
     • SMTP_USERNAME: Your Gmail address (for example, notifications@example.com)
     • SMTP_PASSWORD: The app password you generated

4. Update the recipient email:

   • In the automation script, change john.doe@example.com to your email address.
   • You can add multiple recipients by separating emails with commas.

Alternative SMTP providers

You can use other email providers instead of Gmail. Update the server_address and server_port in the script accordingly:

• Outlook.com: smtp-mail.outlook.com, port 587
• Yahoo: smtp.mail.yahoo.com, port 587
• Custom SMTP: Contact your email provider for the correct settings

Create the automation script

Inside your new repository, create a folder path: .github/workflows/. Inside that folder, create a file named monitor.yml. Add the following code:

name: Monitor Aiven docs
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 9 * * *' # Runs daily at 9:00 AM UTC
  workflow_dispatch: # Allows you to run it manually to test

permissions:
  contents: write

jobs:
  check-changes:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Fetch latest llms.txt
        run: |
          curl -s https://aiven.io/docs/llms.txt -o latest_llms.txt

      - name: Compare and notify
        id: compare
        run: |
          if [ -f current_llms.txt ]; then
            if ! cmp -s current_llms.txt latest_llms.txt; then
              echo "changed=true" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
            else
              echo "changed=false" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
            fi
          else
            cp latest_llms.txt current_llms.txt
            echo "changed=false" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
          fi

      - name: Send slack alert
        if: steps.compare.outputs.changed == 'true'
        env:
          SLACK_WEBHOOK: ${{ secrets.SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL }}
        run: |
          curl -X POST -H 'Content-type: application/json' \
          --data "{\"text\":\"🔔 *Aiven Docs Update:* Changes detected in llms.txt. View live: https://aiven.io/docs/llms.txt\"}" \
          $SLACK_WEBHOOK

      - name: Send email alert
        if: steps.compare.outputs.changed == 'true'
        uses: dawidd6/action-send-mail@v3
        with:
          server_address: smtp.gmail.com
          server_port: 587
          username: ${{ secrets.SMTP_USERNAME }}
          password: ${{ secrets.SMTP_PASSWORD }}
          subject: 🔔 Aiven docs update detected
          to: john.doe@example.com
          from: ${{ secrets.SMTP_USERNAME }}
          body: |
            Hello,

            Changes have been detected in the Aiven documentation llms.txt file.

            🔍 What changed: The llms.txt file has been updated
            📅 Detection time: ${{ github.run_id }} - ${{ github.run_number }}
            🌐 View live document: https://aiven.io/docs/llms.txt
            📊 Workflow run: ${{ github.server_url }}/${{ github.repository }}/actions/runs/${{ github.run_id }}

            This is an automated notification from the Aiven docs monitor.

            Best regards,
            Aiven docs monitor

      - name: Save changes to history
        if: steps.compare.outputs.changed == 'true'
        run: |
          git config user.name "Aiven Monitor"
          git config user.email "monitor@example.com"
          mv latest_llms.txt current_llms.txt
          git add current_llms.txt
          git commit -m "Detect changes in Aiven llms.txt"
          git push

tip

You can expand this script to monitor specific product folders, like only PostgreSQL® or Valkey™.

Test the monitoring setup

Once you save the file, go to the Actions tab in your GitHub repository, select Monitor Aiven Docs, and click Run workflow. This performs the first capture of the file.