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Connectors · Web & scripts

Connect RSS / Atom

Set up with your AI

Watch any feed.

You need
Nothing for public feeds 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
On this page

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 
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.

Stuck? Open an issue on GitHub, or write to hello@coisland.app.

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