GitHub Notifications in i3

Get GitHub notifications on your i3 status bar.

How-to

1. Run notification.py in the background on i3 load.

To do this, add an exec command to your i3 config:

# ~/.i3/config
exec --no-startup-id /path/to/notification.py &

2. Set GH_NOTIFICATION_TOKEN environment variable to a GitHub API token.

To get a token, visit the GitHub settings.

To make sure this variable is set before the notification script is run, add it to your ~/.profile file.

You can also set the GH_NOTIFICATION_FILE that will be used to track whether you have notifications, and the GH_NOTIFICATION_INTERVAL between checking for notifications (default: 60 seconds).

3. Make i3status watch for the GitHub notifications file.

add a run_watch to your ~/.i3status.conf that watches for the notification file (default: ~/.ghn):

# ~/.i3status.conf

order += "run_watch GH"
...
run_watch GH {
        pidfile = "/home/tschuy/.ghn"
}

Whenever the file exists, i3status will report Yes, and likewise, when the file does not exist, it will report No.

4. Reload i3.

You may need to log out and back in for the environment variable to be properly set.