VietJet Flight Price Tracker

A flight price tracking system that crawls flight prices for VietJet Air routes, logs them to a database thrice daily, and provides a premium local analytics dashboard showing recommendations and historical trends.

---

1. Project Directory Structure

Key files:

1. scraper.js: Puppeteer script that scrapes VietJet prices from Google Flights. Upgraded with 42 popular domestic routes and a concurrent worker pool (2 workers) that scrapes pages in parallel.
2. flights_db.json: Local database containing captured price history (over 11,000 runs spanning the last 30 days for all routes).
3. run-scraper.bat: Batch file to run the scraper and log console outputs.
4. setup-schedule.ps1: PowerShell script that registers the background task in Windows Task Scheduler.
5. server.js: Zero-dependency local web server to host the dashboard.
6. run-dashboard.bat: Batch file that launches the server and opens the dashboard in your default browser.
7. index.html, style.css, app.js: The premium dark-mode visual dashboard layout and interactive analytics charting. Supports Vietnamese translation, light/dark mode toggling, dynamic stats card rendering based on the selected route, and separated Departure/Arrival selectors.
8. .github/workflows/scrape.yml: GitHub Actions workflow that runs the scraper 3x/day automatically in the cloud.

---

2. Visual Features

Dashboard Overview

• Visual Excellence: Deep purple radial gradient background with glassmorphism card overlays, custom HSL styling, and Outfit typography.
• Dynamic Stats Cards: Updates average prices, historic minimums, latest price, and buying recommendations dynamically based on the selected route.
• Separated Route Selectors: Split dropdown menu for Departure and Arrival destinations. The Arrival dropdown dynamically shortlists based on the selected Departure airport to prevent invalid route selections.
• Interactive Analytics: Interactive line charts using Chart.js to track price changes over the past 30 days.
• Diagnostics FAQs: Drop-down accordion menus containing raw flight log data and helpful configuration information.

---

3. How to Run & Verify

Step 1: Query Flight Prices Manually

To execute a manual scrape run and append data to the database:

node scraper.js

Step 2: Launch the Analytics Dashboard

To start the dashboard HTTP server and view the charts:

1. Double-click the run-dashboard.bat batch script.
2. It will open http://localhost:3000 in your default web browser automatically.

Step 3: Register Background 3x/Daily Scrapes

To ensure the scraper runs automatically three times a day (at 8:00 AM, 2:00 PM, and 8:00 PM local time):

1. Open PowerShell as Administrator.
2. Navigate to the folder and run:

   powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File setup-schedule.ps1

---

4. GitHub Actions Cloud Deployment

The repository is configured to scrape flight data completely in the cloud using GitHub Actions. To deploy:

1. Push your code to your GitHub repository.
2. On GitHub, navigate to Settings → Actions → General and verify Workflow permissions is set to Read and write permissions.
3. Enable GitHub Pages pointing to the main branch root folder / in Settings → Pages.
4. The workflow will run thrice daily, updating your database, and rebuilding the site automatically!