Daily macro morning brief in Slack with FRED and Perplexity

Every weekday at 8am ET (cron trigger), post a "macro morning brief" to a Slack channel I will specify.

For each indicator in a watchlist, pull the latest reading from FRED using Get Series Observations. Compute the change versus the prior reading and the change versus the same point one year ago. Default watchlist:

- UNRATE (Unemployment Rate) - CPIAUCSL (CPI for All Urban Consumers) - DFF (Effective Federal Funds Rate) - DGS10 (10-Year Treasury Yield) - T10Y2Y (10-Year minus 2-Year Treasury Spread) - MORTGAGE30US (30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rate) - GDPC1 (Real GDP) - PAYEMS (Nonfarm Payrolls)

After pulling the data, call Perplexity AI using Create Chat Completion once per indicator with a short focused query like "latest news on US CPI release" or "latest news on US unemployment rate" to get a one-line news context covering recent Fed commentary, data surprises, and market reaction. Keep each blurb to a single sentence so cost stays bounded.

Finally, post a single tidy message to Slack using Slack Bot Send a Message with this format:

- A bold headline per indicator with a directional arrow emoji (↑ for up, ↓ for down, → for flat). - A line under each headline showing the latest value, the change vs the prior reading, and the change vs one year ago. - The Perplexity one-line news context beneath that. - A small footer at the bottom: "Data: FRED. Context: Perplexity."

Keep the whole brief in one channel post. Only spill into a thread if the message gets too long for Slack to render cleanly.

Both the watchlist (series IDs and display names) and the Slack channel should be editable inputs at the top of the workflow so I can tune them without rewriting the agent instructions.

Additional information

What does this prompt do?

Pulls the latest reading for a watchlist of US economic indicators every weekday morning.
Compares each value to the previous reading and to the same time one year ago.
Adds a one-line news take per indicator: recent Fed commentary, data surprises, and market reaction.
Posts a single tidy Slack message with bold headlines, directional arrows, and the deltas rolled up.

What do I need to use this?

A free FRED account and API key from the St. Louis Fed.
A Perplexity AI account with API credits for the one-line news context.
A Slack workspace and a channel where the bot can post.

How can I customize it?

Swap the watchlist of indicators (unemployment, CPI, fed funds rate, 10-year Treasury, mortgage rate, payrolls, and more).
Move the post time or change which Slack channel it goes to.
Skip the news context to keep the brief minimal and avoid Perplexity costs.

Frequently asked questions

Which economic indicators are included by default?

A starter watchlist of eight: unemployment rate, CPI, effective fed funds rate, 10-year Treasury yield, the 10s minus 2s spread, 30-year fixed mortgage rate, real GDP, and nonfarm payrolls. You can swap any of them out for other FRED series.

Will my channel get spammed?

No. One tidy post per weekday morning, with every indicator rolled into a single message. You can change the channel, change the time, or pause the schedule any time.

Do I need to pay for Perplexity?

The news context uses Perplexity, which requires API credits on your account. If you want a pure data brief, you can remove the news step and just post the FRED readings.

Can I run it more or less often?

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