rsst

1. About

rsst is a json-driven CUI rss/atom feed reader for command-line addictive users.

It is written in Rust.

Main Features:

• Cross-platform.

• Both RSS 2.0 and Atom are supported.

• Dockerfile and docker-compose.yaml are included.

• Configurations (including a list of feed sites) are written in a single JSON file.

• User-defined triggers (see below).

2. Triggers

When rsst detects new blog entries, it runs a series of registered triggers for each entry.

2.1 Discord trigger

Discord trigger sends a message to a Discord server.

An example of Discord trigger.

2.2 Twitter trigger

Twitter trigger posts a tweet. We operate @rsst_trigger, using this trigger.

An example of Twitter trigger.

2.3 Other Triggers

In a similar manner, any triggers can be implemented by yourself (or via feature requests perhaps).

Here's the list of my future ideas:

• Pocket trigger to add an new blog entry to your Pocket list.

3. Configurations

3.1 About

rsst reads ./conf/config.json as the configuration file. This file is auto-reloaded without the need of restarting a Docker container.

You need not to write this config file from scratch. Just start by copying the template:

cp conf/config_template.json conf/config.json
vi conf/config.json

Comments of the form ^\s*#.*$ are allowed.

3.2 Example

{
    #This is a comment.
    "should_log_debug": true,
    "database_file": "./conf/db.sqlite3",
    "triggers": {
        "discord": {
            "enabled": true,
            "webhook_url": "..."
        },
        "twitter": {
            "enabled": true,
            "consumer_key": "...",
            "consumer_secret": "...",
            "access_token": "...",
            "access_token_secret": "..."
        }
    },
    "feed_url_list": [
        {
            "url": "https://blog.rust-lang.org/feed.xml"
        },
        {
            "url": "http://feeds.feedburner.com/oreilly/newbooks",
            "should_omit_date_field_from_hash": true
        },
        {
            "url": "https://go.dev/blog/feed.atom",
            "is_golang_blog_mode": true
        }
    ]
}

3.3 feed_url_list

The array feed_url_list is where you register your favorites RSS/Atom feeds. Each element is of the type Object rather than simply a URL (String). This object has this structure:

Field	Required	Default Value	Description
url	Yes	-	URL of RSS/Atom feed.
should_omit_date_field_from_hash	No	false	A feed item is regarded as new when its hash value is not found in the database, and the hash is calculated using the item's title, link, publish date, etc. When should_omit_date_field_from_hash == true, the publish date is omitted from the calculation. This is sometimes useful as some feed suppliers often (e.g. everyday) update the values of publish date fields of existing feed items.
is_golang_blog_mode	No	false	Undocumented. This is very specific. You may want to turn this on only when you specify https://go.dev/blog/feed.atom as url.

4. Build

1. First clone this repository and modify the configuration file as you like.

   git clone 'https://github.com/your-diary/rsst'
   cd rsst
   cp conf/config_template.json conf/config.json
   vi conf/config.json

2. Then build a docker image.

   docker compose build

3. (Optional) By default, rsst checks new entries for each registered site once an hour. You can customize this interval by changing the environment variable ${RSST_INTERVAL_MIN}.

   vi docker-compose.yaml

4. Start a docker container.

   docker compose up -d
   

5. (Optional.) At this point, the host-side ./conf/ directory is bind-mounted to the docker container. A SQLite3 database and a log file are created in this directory. To see the real-time log output, run either the followings, both of which behave exactly the same.

   docker logs -f rsst

   tail -f conf/log.txt

5. For Developers

5.1 References

• RSS 2.0 specification - W3C

• Introduction to Atom - W3C

5.2 Database Design

Name	Description
feeds	Represents each site.
feed_items	Represents each blog entry.

5.3 Algorithms