I built GitHub Digest to fix a problem I kept running into: my GitHub notifications were buried in noise, and I couldn't tell what was actually waiting on me.
The problem
My GitHub notifications were a mess. Hundreds of them, and I could never tell which ones were waiting on me and which were just noise. A review request would sit under 40 threads I didn't care about.
What I built
GitHub Digest logs you in with GitHub and sorts your notifications into three groups:
- Needs you now: review requests, questions aimed at you, failed builds
- Worth a look today: mentions and comments
- Can wait: everything else
Each thread also gets:
- A short AI-written summary of what it's asking you to do
- A "Why it's here" line, like "Someone needs your review"
- Done and Mute buttons, so a thread you don't care about stays gone
Review requests that sit for 2+ days get a "Waiting" badge.
How it works
- Backend: Node.js and Express
-
Login: GitHub OAuth. It only asks for
read:userandnotifications, never access to your code - Database: Turso (hosted SQLite). Access tokens are encrypted before they're stored
- AI summaries: Google Gemini, for your 20 most urgent threads. Only the title, type, reason and repo name are sent, never the thread contents
- Hosting: Render
What I learned
- Getting OAuth, sessions and a database working together taught me more than any tutorial.
- A bug that only showed up on the live site (a wrongly named environment variable) took me hours to find. Check your deploy logs first.
- Someone on Reddit told me a priority label is easier to trust when it explains itself. I added the "Why it's here" line the same day.
What's next
- Letting users correct a priority when it's wrong
- Daily email digests (the code is in, but I haven't turned it on yet)
It's free while I build it. Try it here: https://githubdigest.space
I'm building this solo and would love honest feedback. What's confusing, what's missing, and what would make you actually use it?
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