Implementing a WeChat Daily Sentence Template Message with Python and Cron

WeChat development has long provided a powerful template message interface that can push custom messages to users based on their OpenID, enabling server‑side notifications such as a daily "good morning" message.

Experiment environment : an Alibaba Cloud Linux server running Python, and the iciba daily‑sentence API (http://open.iciba.com/dsapi/, GET request returning JSON with fields like content , note , and translation ).

The API response format is JSON; a typical response includes the sentence, its source, and translation. Example request and response screenshots are shown in the original article.

Code examples for Python 2, Python 3, and PHP are provided (images). The template content to be sent is defined as:

{{content.DATA}}<br/>{{note.DATA}}<br/>{{translation.DATA}}

In the WeChat public platform test account, create a new template titled "每日一句" (Daily Sentence) and paste the above placeholders as the template body, then save the template ID for later use.

Retrieve the test account's appid and appsecret from the platform, and scan the test QR code to add the test account as a follower (note that this is a test WeChat ID, not a real personal account).

The complete program source is hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/varlemon/wechat-iciba-everyday . Only four configuration points need to be edited (shown in the Python 2 implementation screenshot).

To deploy, run the script on the Linux server and set up a cron job:

crontab -e

Add the following line to execute the script every day at 06:00:

0 6 * * * python /root/python/iciba/main-v1.0.py

Verify the schedule with:

crontab -l

After deployment, the script sends the daily sentence to the test WeChat account; screenshots show the received message on a mobile device.

Thus, the program is fully deployed and will deliver the daily sentence each morning at 6 am.