Bookalert

Bookalert monitors book prices on Bookfinder.com and sends push notifications via the Join Android app when a book drops to your target price. It includes a dark web UI (Readarr/Sonarr-style) and runs as a Docker container.

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Features

• Add books by ISBN with a target price
• Checks prices every 30 minutes via a background daemon
• Push notification to Android when a book hits your price
• Web UI with price history charts and alert log
• Docker-ready

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Docker (recommended)

1. Pull the image

docker pull ricetim/bookalert:latest

2. Add to your docker-compose.yml

services:
  bookalert:
    image: ricetim/bookalert:latest
    container_name: bookalert
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 5001:5000
    volumes:
      - /path/to/data:/data
    environment:
      BOOKALERT_DB_PATH: /data/bookalert.db
      BOOKALERT_JOIN_API_KEY: ""       # your Join API key
      BOOKALERT_JOIN_DEVICE_ID: ""     # your Join device ID
      BOOKALERT_CHECK_INTERVAL: "30"   # minutes between checks
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "curl", "-f", "http://localhost:5000/health"]
      interval: 30s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 3

3. Start it

docker compose up -d bookalert

Open http://yourserver:5001 in your browser.

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Join Push Notifications

1. Install Join on your Android device
2. Get your API key and device ID from joinjoaomgcd.com
3. Set BOOKALERT_JOIN_API_KEY and BOOKALERT_JOIN_DEVICE_ID in your environment or config file

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Running locally (without Docker)

Requirements

• Python 3.9+
• Playwright (Chromium)

Install

git clone https://github.com/ricetim/bookalert.git
cd bookalert
pip install -e .
playwright install chromium

Configure

# Creates ~/.config/bookalert/config.ini
bookalert check

Edit ~/.config/bookalert/config.ini and set your Join API key and device ID:

[join]
api_key = your_api_key_here
device_id = your_device_id_here

[daemon]
check_interval_minutes = 30

[database]
path = ~/.local/share/bookalert/bookalert.db

Web UI

python web.py
# Open http://localhost:5000

CLI

bookalert add <isbn> <target_price>    # add a book to monitor
bookalert list                          # show all monitored books
bookalert remove <isbn>                 # stop monitoring a book
bookalert history <isbn>               # show price history
bookalert check                        # run a price check now
bookalert daemon                       # run the background daemon

systemd (optional)

cp bookalert.service ~/.config/systemd/user/
systemctl --user enable --now bookalert
journalctl --user -u bookalert -f

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Building from source

git clone https://github.com/ricetim/bookalert.git
cd bookalert
sudo docker build -t bookalert:latest .

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Tech stack

• Python 3.12
• Playwright (Chromium) — WAF-bypass scraping of Bookfinder
• SQLite — price history and book database
• Flask 3 + Jinja2 — web UI
• Bootstrap 5.3 dark theme + HTMX + Chart.js
• Join API — Android push notifications