Wheeler Lab — Conferences

A lightweight, self-updating list of upcoming conferences and workshops relevant to the Wheeler Lab: bioinformatics, ML for biology, genomics, and protein structural modeling.

Live site: https://wheelerlab.org/conferences/

How it works

• data/conferences.json is the single source of truth. Each entry has a machine-readable start/end (ISO dates, used for sorting and pruning), a human-readable dates_display, plus name, url, location, paper_deadline, and poster_deadline.
• index.html / app.js / style.css render the data as a static page. The page splits entries into Upcoming (end date ≥ today) and a collapsed Past section entirely in the browser — no build step.
• scripts/prune.py moves entries whose end date has passed out of conferences.json and into data/archive.json, which the page loads for its Past conferences section, and refreshes the updated field.

Automation

1. Archiving — .github/workflows/prune.yml runs prune.py weekly (Mondays) and commits the result, so the Upcoming list never shows finished meetings (they move to data/archive.json for the Past section). It can also be run on demand from the repo's Actions tab.
2. Discovery — a scheduled Claude agent runs every two weeks, searches the web for new relevant conferences within the next ~12 months, adds them to data/conferences.json (de-duplicating on name), and commits directly. See DISCOVERY_PROMPT.md for the exact instructions it follows.

Adding a conference

Easiest: click + Add a conference on the site. Paste a URL or type a short description (e.g. Asilomar Repbase/Dfam retreat - Sept 13-16 at Asilomar (Monterey)) — one per line, mix freely — and submit. Each line is appended to add-conferences.txt; on its next run (hourly) the discovery agent fetches URLs, interprets descriptions, verifies details against the real site, adds an entry to data/conferences.json, and removes the line. (The button uses the same GitHub token as attendees.)

You can also edit add-conferences.txt directly and commit — same result. To process immediately instead of waiting, open the routine at https://claude.ai/code/routines and click Run now.

Editing a conference

Click Edit at the end of a conference's row and describe the change in plain English (e.g. poster deadline should be October 5, 2026). The request is appended to edit-requests.txt; on its next run the discovery agent finds the entry, applies the change (your stated value wins; it may verify against the site), and removes the line. You can also edit data/conferences.json directly for an instant change.

Removing a conference

Click the ✕ at the end of a conference's row and confirm. Its name/URL is added to data/hidden.json; the page hides anything listed there, and the discovery agent won't re-add it. To bring it back, delete its entry from data/hidden.json.

Adding attendees

The Attending column lists lab members going to each upcoming meeting. Add yourself right from the site: click + Add in a conference's row, type a name, and Save. The change is committed to data/attendees.json and appears on the page within ~1 minute.

The first time you add someone, the page asks for a GitHub fine-grained personal access token with Contents: Read and write on this repo. It is stored only in your browser (localStorage) and sent only to GitHub — never embedded in the page. Use the footer GitHub token… link to change or clear it. You can also edit data/attendees.json by hand (keys are conference names, matched case-insensitively).

Editing by hand

Add or correct an entry directly in data/conferences.json and commit. Keep start/end as valid YYYY-MM-DD dates so sorting and pruning work.

Local preview

python3 -m http.server 8000
# then open http://localhost:8000/