I'd like a way to have a device on my desk which lights up to indicate that I have something I should be paying attention to. Initially, I'd like this to be for Office365 calendar events and GitHub mentions, but ideally it should support arbitrary messages. The plan is to assign specific colors (ideally "patterns" consisting of a sequence of colors and time) to specific message types.

I have a handful of raspberry Pi Zeroes, a couple of OLEDs, a strand of individually-addressable RGB LEDs, a power supply, and some misc electronics (like the 3.3-5v logic level shifter necessary for the 5v LED strand). I'm thinking Python is probably the way to go for the software. I'm hoping OpenSUSE actually works on the Pi zero. :D If not, there's an ESP32 with a built-in display and a few Pi 3s laying around barely used, maybe one of them will work.

Either way, this should deliver a how-to (perhaps an instructable?) using all open source software.