Standup Digest

Build a automation called Standup Digest: a Slack bot that turns 40 standup threads into one paragraph.

What it does

Every morning at 10, Standup Digest reads the standup channel, links what people said to Linear issues, and posts one short paragraph for the whole team: what moved, what's blocked, and who needs help.

Stack

Use Python, Slack API, Anthropic API. The original was built with Claude Code and ChatGPT in 1 weekend, for about $8 in AI usage.

How it fits together

• A scheduled job that reads from one tool and writes to another
• A small store so it never posts the same thing twice
• A dry run mode that prints instead of posting

Build it in this order

1. Connect to the source and print what it would read
2. Write the transformation and test it on a week of real data
3. Add the destination in dry run mode
4. Schedule it and add an alert when it fails
5. Switch off dry run

Tools to connect

• Slack MCP: read the channel while developing the summariser
• Linear MCP: match updates to issues

A prompt that worked: Summarise without losing the blocker

Summarise today's standup thread in one paragraph under 90 words. Lead with anything blocked and who can unblock it. Then what shipped. Skip anything that's the same as yesterday. Link each item to its Linear issue if one is mentioned. Never invent progress that isn't in the thread.

Watch out for

• Never post on someone's behalf without a dry run first
• Handle the days when there is nothing to do

Done when

• It runs on a schedule without supervision
• Failures alert a person
• It never posts duplicates

Before writing code, ask me up to five questions about who this internal tools automation is for and what the first version must do. Then work in small steps: after each one, tell me how to try it and wait for my feedback.