Redesign Discord notification system with rich embeds by robbykap · Pull Request #8 · BYU-CS-Course-Ops/utils

robbykap · 2026-04-01T19:56:04Z

Summary

Supersedes #7 (closed without merge). Redesigns Canvas and Docker Discord notifications from plain-text content into rich embeds with colored sidebars, author blocks, emoji badges, field-based sections, and timestamps.

What changed

Canvas & Docker notifications now use rich Discord embeds instead of plain-text content:
- Colored sidebar: green (0x57F287) success, yellow (0xFEE75C) review needed, red (0xED4245) error
- Author block with GitHub avatar
- Embed fields for "Needs review" and "Deployed"/"Built"/"Failed" sections with emoji badges
- Automatic field chunking when items exceed Discord's 1024-char field limit (handles 170+ items)
- Embed-level chunking across multiple messages when total exceeds 6000 chars
- Invisible spacer fields between major sections
- UTC timestamps for Discord's native relative rendering
New --author-icon CLI arg for send_course.py — action passes https://github.com/{actor}.png
dedupe_remaining_content now returns (type, label, url) triples instead of (label, url) pairs
PyPI notification migration was split into follow-up PR Move PyPI notifications to shared notification package #9

⚠️ Breaking Changes

Canvas / Docker workflows

Caller workflows require these inputs (introduced in #7, carried forward here):

with:
  course_id: "235"
  course_name: "CS 235 Spring 2025"
  course_url: "https://byu.instructure.com/courses/12345"

utils_ref remains optional (for smoke-testing against a non-main utils branch).

Downstream course workflow PRs (from #7):

Repo	PR	Description
CS235-course-content	#256	Add required course notification inputs
CS110-course-content	#56	Add required course notification inputs
CS312-course-content	#215	Add required course notification inputs
CS301R-Agent-Engineering-Course-Content	#40	Add required course notification inputs

`dedupe_remaining_content` return type

Changed from list[tuple[str, str | None]] to list[tuple[str, str, str | None]] — now includes the content type. Only used internally by canvas_format.py.

Verified

Canvas notification — end-to-end tested via testkapua/testing-repo (170 items, field chunking works)
Docker notification — end-to-end tested via testkapua/testing-repo
Error state notifications render truncated tracebacks in embed description
Role mentions (<@&{cicd_role_id}>) still work via content field
Embed chunking handles payloads exceeding Discord's 6000-char embed limit

Post-merge checklist

Merge downstream course workflow PRs: CS235#256, CS110#56, CS312#215, CS301R#40
Review or merge follow-up PyPI PR: #9
Update testkapua/testing-repo workflow refs from codex-plain-text-notifications to main

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

This reverts commit c61eb59.

Embed provides a colored header bar with title and footer. Plain text content uses Discord markdown (### headers, links, code blocks) for clean readability. Color-coded sidebar: green (success), orange (needs review), red (errors). Simplified formatters, removed unused helpers, updated tests. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Replace plain-text content with rich Discord embeds matching the MDXCanvas deploy notification style: colored sidebar (green/yellow/red), author block with GitHub avatar, emoji resource-type badges, embed fields for deployed/review/failed items, and timestamps. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Discord field values are capped at 1024 chars. With 170+ deployed items, a single field overflows and Discord returns 400. Added chunk_field_lines() to split lines into field-sized chunks, and continuation fields use zero-width space headers. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Zero-width space spacers were invisible. Replace with a thin horizontal dash line for clear visual separation. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

MDXCanvas outputs lowercase types (page, quiz, module_item) but the emoji map had PascalCase keys. Normalized to lowercase lookup and added module_item, announcement, syllabus types. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

EmbedBuilder tracks character budget and field count, enforcing Discord embed limits when building Embed dataclasses incrementally. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

…in wrappers Remove all constants and chunking functions from send_notification.py (now delegates to discord_limits) and remove chunk_field_lines, emoji_for, RESOURCE_EMOJI, and MAX_FIELD_CHARS from formatting_utils.py. Replace test_embed_chunking.py to test the canonical discord_limits exports instead of the deleted private helpers. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Replace the old chunk_field_lines/emoji approach with the new 3-case notification format: error (red), needs-review (yellow), success (green). Uses tabulate pipe-format overview tables, EmbedBuilder/MessageBuilder for limit-aware field packing, and removes all emojis per spec. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

… to pass cicd_role_id, and update formatter tests Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

robbykap and others added 29 commits February 13, 2026 12:16

Major refactor for notification system

6ed7a0a

Fix action paths

27aa6c6

Update mdxcanvas_automation.yaml

963d88b

Fix paths

c61eb59

Revert "Fix paths"

9ad268b

This reverts commit c61eb59.

Update mdxcanvas_automation.yaml

71fea04

Update mdxcanvas_automation.yaml

9c33d8e

Update mdxcanvas_automation.yaml

fee6ec8

Update mdxcanvas_automation.yaml

3e2fb33

Update mdxcanvas_automation.yaml

0009f21

Update formatting_utils.py

191a83a

Update formatting_utils.py

3e3834b

Update formatting_utils.py

7d94cf4

Update .gitignore

7b7ccaf

Redesign course notifications as plain text

38f5f4a

Fix reusable workflow checkout refs

556616a

Add explicit utils_ref for reusable workflow tests

1508b63

Install markdowndata for course notifications

a0b4b37

Polish Discord course notification layout

0ddf516

Add whitespace and block quotes to embed fields

280e13c

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Add spacer fields between major embed sections

db7275f

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Use visible separator line for spacers between embed sections

9d5465e

Zero-width space spacers were invisible. Replace with a thin horizontal dash line for clear visual separation. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Stack two invisible spacer fields for visible gap between sections

5309ca1

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Remove type label from item lines, keep emoji only

ad80857

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Use thumbtack emoji for all items with type labels

159e4ef

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

robbykap changed the title ~~Redesign Discord notification system~~ Redesign Discord notification system with rich embeds Apr 1, 2026

robbykap and others added 13 commits April 8, 2026 12:38

Add discord_limits module with constants, calc_embed_size, split_content

5b8c77a

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Add EmbedBuilder to discord_limits.py with tests

024f183

EmbedBuilder tracks character budget and field count, enforcing Discord embed limits when building Embed dataclasses incrementally. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Fix double-counting bug in EmbedBuilder.can_add_field

e9bf8ca

Rewrite docker_format.py with MessageBuilder, simplify send_course.py…

8d352ab

… to pass cicd_role_id, and update formatter tests Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Add integration tests with real payload and edge cases

2aa6ca9

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Update mdxcanvas_automation.yaml

7c6d6dc

Update canvas_format.py

54bdbf8

Update canvas_format.py

12d2dbf

Finalized discord notifications for docker and mdxcanvas

39bc745

fixed cicd for docker

bc4117f

Remove PyPI notification migration from PR

2cfa55f

robbykap mentioned this pull request Apr 15, 2026

Move PyPI notifications to shared notification package #9

Open

Over View -> Overview

a1472b0

byubean approved these changes Apr 15, 2026

View reviewed changes

byubean merged commit e186133 into main Apr 15, 2026

byubean deleted the codex-plain-text-notifications branch April 15, 2026 21:30

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Redesign Discord notification system with rich embeds#8

Redesign Discord notification system with rich embeds#8
byubean merged 43 commits intomainfrom
codex-plain-text-notifications

robbykap commented Apr 1, 2026 •

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robbykap commented Apr 1, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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Summary

What changed

⚠️ Breaking Changes

Canvas / Docker workflows

dedupe_remaining_content return type

Verified

Post-merge checklist

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robbykap commented Apr 1, 2026 •

edited

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`dedupe_remaining_content` return type