DOSSIER / free-games-notifier

Why this is a side project

Free Games Notifier started from a small practical itch: I wanted a way to avoid missing free games and useful Steam discounts. Instead of leaving it as a local script, I treated it like a small production automation system.

The result is a side project that fetches free games from Epic Games Store, checks free and discounted games from Steam, renders email notifications, and sends them to subscriber lists. The visible product is simple. The engineering value is in how the whole thing runs without me opening a terminal every day.

CI/CD as the core feature

The main workflow runs on a daily GitHub Actions schedule and supports manual workflow_dispatch. Manual runs can choose between production and development behavior, so I can test the notifier without spamming real subscribers.

That split matters. It shows the same discipline I would use in larger systems: one automation pipeline, clear environment selection, secrets separated from code, and operational behavior controlled through configuration instead of temporary edits.

Registration flow

The project also includes a GitHub Pages registration UI. Because GitHub Pages cannot directly write to the repository, the registration flow uses a second hop:

• the static form submits email and Steam price cap data;
• a registration endpoint triggers repository_dispatch;
• GitHub Actions validates the payload;
• a script updates src/data/email-lists.json;
• the workflow opens a pull request for review.

That means subscriber changes are not silently written into the default branch. They become reviewable diffs with history, branch isolation, and a clear audit trail.

What it demonstrates

This project is intentionally small, but it demonstrates practical CI/CD fluency:

• scheduled jobs with GitHub Actions;
• manual workflow inputs for dev/prod routing;
• GitHub Secrets for SMTP credentials;
• repository_dispatch for external event ingestion;
• automated pull request creation for data changes;
• GitHub Pages redeploy workflow;
• focused tests for subscriber normalization, price caps, email rendering, and registration upserts.

It is a good example of how I build side projects: solve a real personal problem, then use the project to practice the engineering habits that matter in real systems.