This post has 8 reactions! - Using the dev.to API to update the post title with the reactions count!

This is just a silly experiment inspired by this video from Ben Awad where he reverse-engineered the TikTok API to update his profile with live stats of one of his TikTok videos.

I wanted to try this out too and thought it might work on the dev.to platform too. I looked up the API documentation and found the endpoints that I need to use to make this work!

I don't have any bad intentions and don't want to hit the API too often. Some of the API endpoints have rate limits too, therefore I am making sure that I only make requests when it is necessary and every 30 seconds.

Here is the code that I used to make this work:

phiilu / dev.to-reactions-in-article-title

Using the dev.to API to update the article with the count of reactions.

import axios from 'axios';
import dotenv from 'dotenv';

dotenv.config();

const POST_ID = process.env.POST_ID;
const BASE_URL = `https://dev.to/api`;
const client = axios.create({
    baseURL: BASE_URL, headers: {
        'api-key': process.env.API_KEY
    }
})
let currentReactionsCount = 0;

const API = {
    article(id = POST_ID) {
        return client.get(`/articles/${id}`);
    },
    updateArticle(id = POST_ID, body) {
        return client.put(`/articles/${id}`, body);
    }
};

const sleep = async (amount = 30000) => new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, amount))

while (true) {
    try {
        const { data } = await API.article();
        const { public_reactions_count } = data;
        const newTitle = `This post has ${public_reactions_count} reactions! - Using the dev.to API to update the post title with the reactions count!`

        if (currentReactionsCount !== public_reactions_count) {
            await API.updateArticle(POST_ID, { title: newTitle });
            currentReactionsCount = public_reactions_count;
            console.log(`Article updated - Reactions: ${currentReactionsCount}`)
        } else {
            console.log(`Reaction count was the same`)
        }
    } catch (error) {
        console.log(error.message)
    } finally {
        await sleep();
    }
}

You can create a new API key inside your account settings and the API documentation can be found here.

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Now if this is working this post should get updated every 30 seconds with the current reaction count!

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Edit:

I noticed that the API might not return up-to-date data and therefore takes maybe longer than 30 seconds.