Event Radar

Automated event monitoring tool. Users are notified by email when artists, authors, bands, or speakers from their personal watch list perform in their city.

How it works

1. Users register and configure a location (e.g. "Berlin") and a watch list of names
2. Every day at 08:00 the search pipeline runs for all verified users
3. For each name on the watch list, Claude searches the web and extracts structured event data (name, date, venue, URL)
4. Events include concerts, readings, lectures, talks, and other public appearances
5. Events without a clean future date or matching city are discarded
6. New events (not previously reported) trigger an email notification

A Search now button in the dashboard triggers the pipeline manually and streams the log live in the browser.

A Discover button lets Claude suggest the best websites for each watch list entry. The user can then select which sites to add as preferred search sources.

An Active / Paused toggle lets each user pause the daily search without deleting their watch list. Paused users are skipped by the 08:00 pipeline.

Requirements

• Docker + Docker Compose
• Anthropic API key
• Brave Search API key (optional — free tier: 2 000 queries/month, used as fallback)
• An SMTP server (Gmail works — see below)

Setup

git clone ...
cd event-radar
cp .env.example .env
# Fill in .env (see Configuration below)
docker compose up --build

The app is now available at http://localhost:8000.

Configuration

Variable	Required	Description
SECRET_KEY	✅	Random secret for JWT and email tokens. Generate with: python3 -c "import secrets; print(secrets.token_hex(32))"
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	✅	Anthropic API key
BRAVE_API_KEY		Brave Search API key — required for the brave_claude engine
PERPLEXITY_API_KEY		Perplexity API key — required for the sonar engine
PERPLEXITY_MODEL		Perplexity model for the sonar engine. Default: sonar (cheap, shallow); use sonar-pro for deeper search.
DATABASE_URL		Default: sqlite:////data/event_radar.db
SMTP_HOST	✅	SMTP server hostname
SMTP_PORT		Default: 587 (STARTTLS). Use 465 for SSL
SMTP_USER		SMTP username (leave empty for unauthenticated)
SMTP_PASSWORD		SMTP password
FROM_EMAIL	✅	Sender address
ADMIN_EMAIL		Receives a notification when a new user registers. Defaults to FROM_EMAIL.
BASE_URL	✅	Public URL of this instance including path prefix — used in verification email links (e.g. https://yourdomain.com/event-radar)
ROOT_PATH		URL prefix when served under a sub-path (e.g. /event-radar). Leave empty for root.
SECURE_COOKIES		Set to true when serving over HTTPS
SEARCH_MODE		Comma-separated engine chain. Default: claude,brave_claude. See Search modes below.

Search modes

SEARCH_MODE is a comma-separated list of engines, tried in order until one returns results. This makes later engines act as fallbacks for earlier ones.

Engine	Behaviour	Requires
claude	Claude uses its built-in web search to find and extract events in one step.	ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
brave_claude	Brave Search fetches result snippets, Claude extracts structured event data from them.	BRAVE_API_KEY + ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
sonar	Perplexity Sonar searches and extracts events.	PERPLEXITY_API_KEY

Examples: claude,brave_claude (default) · brave_claude · sonar,claude,brave_claude

Gmail SMTP

1. Enable 2-factor authentication on your Google account
2. Create an App Password
3. Set SMTP_HOST=smtp.gmail.com, SMTP_PORT=587, and use the 16-character app password (without spaces) as SMTP_PASSWORD

Apache reverse proxy

ProxyPass        /event-radar/ http://localhost:8000/ flushpackets=on
ProxyPassReverse /event-radar/ http://localhost:8000/

flushpackets=on is required for the live log stream (SSE) to work. The trailing slashes are required — Apache strips the /event-radar prefix before forwarding to the app.

Viewing registered users

docker compose exec web python -c "
from app.database import SessionLocal
from app.models import User
db = SessionLocal()
for u in db.query(User).all():
    print(u.id, u.email, u.is_verified, u.location)
"

Listing registered users

docker compose exec web python list_users.py

Shows all users with their verification status, location, watch list, and search sites.

Running the search pipeline manually

Either click Search now in the dashboard (shows a live log), or run the pipeline for all users from the host:

docker compose exec worker python run_pipeline.py