Github Actions

First, I need to confirm that GitHub Actions can indeed be used for scheduled tasks. I know GitHub Actions provides cron scheduling in workflows. The free tier allows a certain number of minutes per month, so I should check the limits. For public repositories, it's 2,000 minutes, which should be enough for daily scraping if the job isn't too long.

But wait, the user might be using a private repo. In that case, the free tier only includes 500 MB of storage and 2,000 minutes. If their scraping job is lightweight, like running once a day for a few minutes, it might fit. However, they need to be cautious about exceeding the limits.

Next, the user wants to scrape websites. I should mention the legal and ethical considerations. They need to respect the website's robots.txt, avoid overloading servers, and ensure they have permission to scrape. Also, handling potential IP bans or CAPTCHAs might be necessary. Maybe suggest using polite scraping practices, like rate limiting and user-agent headers.

Then, I need to outline how to set up a GitHub Actions workflow for this. The structure would involve creating a YAML file in the .github/workflows directory. The cron syntax for scheduling, setting up the job steps: checking out the repo, installing Python, dependencies, running the script, and committing any changes back if needed.

I should provide an example workflow. Let's say they have a Python script that scrapes data and saves it to a file. The workflow would run the script daily, then commit the updated data file back to the repository. But they need to handle authentication if the script requires API keys or database access. Using GitHub Secrets to store sensitive information like database URLs or API keys is crucial here.

Another consideration is data storage. If they're scraping and saving data, where to put it? The repo itself can store small files, but for larger datasets, they might need to push to a database. Since they mentioned Supabase before, maybe they can have the script insert data directly into Supabase after scraping.

Potential issues: GitHub Actions runners are ephemeral, so any data generated during the job needs to be persisted. Committing back to the repo is one way, or uploading to cloud storage. Also, if the scraping job takes too long, they might hit the time limit (6 hours per job on free tier).

They might not know about the 6-hour limit, so it's good to mention that. For longer tasks, they'd need to optimize or split the work. Maybe suggest using a serverless function if the task is too heavy, but since they're looking for free options, sticking within GitHub's limits is better.

Testing the workflow is important. They can manually trigger the workflow to see if it works before relying on the cron schedule. Also, logging and error handling in their script to catch issues during scraping.

Lastly, remind them about GitHub's Terms of Service. Automated tasks shouldn't violate any policies, and scraping should be done responsibly. Maybe add a note about monitoring their usage to avoid hitting rate limits or getting blocked by the target website.

Putting this all together, the answer should confirm that GitHub Actions can be used for this purpose, outline the steps to set it up, provide a code example, and highlight important considerations like legal aspects, data storage, and GitHub's limitations.