# Connect RSS / Atom

> Watch any feed. A new GitHub release, a new post on a blog, or a Hacker News story that says your keyword reaches your Mac's notch, with the article one click away.

Source: https://coisland.app/docs/connect-rss/

## What you need

- **You need:** Nothing for public feeds, from A user and password, or a token, for a private feed
- **The form asks:** Connector name, Site (optional), User name (optional), Password or token (optional)
- **You can watch:** New entries, Keywords
- **Access:** GET requests only, asked again only when the feed changed

The RSS / Atom connector reads feeds and alerts on each new entry. It reads RSS 2.0, RSS 1.0 (RDF) and Atom 1.0 with macOS's own XML parser, and asks each feed conditionally: a feed that has not changed answers Not Modified and is not downloaded again.

## Add the connector

1. Open **Settings › Connectors**, click **+** and choose **RSS / Atom**.
2. For public feeds, give only a name (`feeds` is suggested) and click **Add Connector**.
3. For a private feed, give its **Site** (the key goes there only), then a **User name** and a **Password** for HTTP Basic, or only a **Password or token**, sent as a bearer token.

## Watch a feed

Open **Settings › Monitors**, click **+** and choose **RSS / Atom**, then **New entries**. Paste the feed's address or pick one under **Start From**:

| Feed | Address |
|---|---|
| GitHub releases of a repository | `https://github.com/OWNER/REPO/releases.atom` |
| GitHub tags of a repository | `https://github.com/OWNER/REPO/tags.atom` |
| Hacker News front page | `https://news.ycombinator.com/rss` |
| Hacker News stories mentioning a word | `https://hnrss.org/newest?q=WORD` |
| A blog | its feed, like `https://go.dev/blog/feed.atom` |

```text
feed:https://github.com/swiftlang/swift/releases.atom
feed:https://news.ycombinator.com/rss keyword:Swift keyword:macOS
```

- **Keywords** keep the entries saying any of them in their title, text or categories, whatever the case or accents. A phrase writes a space as `+`.
- An entry is named by its `guid` (RSS), `id` (Atom) or `rdf:about` (RSS 1.0), else its link. The first check records what is there and stays quiet.
- An entry that leaves the feed and comes back alerts again.

Clicking a row opens the alert in CoIsland with the whole article when the feed carries it (`content:encoded`, Atom `content`), else its summary. Scripts never run, and remote images wait for **Load Images**.

## Troubleshooting

- **"...: The answer is not XML, so not a feed (RSS or Atom)."** The address is a web page: find its feed link (often `/feed`, `/rss` or `/atom.xml`).
- **"... moved to ... Use that address."** Paste the new address; redirects are not followed.
- **"Use https:// for example.com."** Plain http is read only on this Mac.