After giving Bad Decisions a browser client and multiplayer, I gave it an appointment.

Daily Regrets is a little bot that draws one round of Bad Decisions, makes a card out of the result, and posts it to @regret.bytes.coffee on Bluesky.

It posts once a day, around nine in the morning Pacific time.

The morning routine

The bot asks the live Bad Decisions API for a round from Cards Against Coffee. The response includes a prompt, its answers, and the finished sentence (the consequence). The bot renders that as a square image.

The card looks like the rest of Bytes & Coffee, down to the dark ink, cream lettering, burnt orange, and large serif type. Answers get italics and an underline so you can see exactly which words caused the trouble. The footer carries the issue number, date, and pack name.

Each card is drawn with Python and Pillow, with typography sized to fit the day's consequence. Even a terrible sentence deserves to look good. I've spent an unreasonable amount of attention on the orange.

A sample card from the pre-launch test, rather than the first scheduled post. Cards Against Coffee by Michael Yazdani, based on the author's IRC messages (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The Bluesky post includes the consequence when it fits, an image description containing the full text and attribution, and a link back to the game. If the sentence is too long for the post, you can still read it on the card or in its alt text.

A daily dose

A fresh card arrives each morning around 9 a.m. Pacific. The schedule follows the local clock through daylight saving time.

The first card lands October 1. After that, the bot posts one new consequence a day.

Follow along

You can follow Daily Regrets for one fresh consequence each morning, or deal your own whenever you feel sufficiently responsible.

It is an unreasonable amount of machinery for one bad decision before coffee, which seems appropriate.