rss

A CLI tool for reading RSS feeds directly in your terminal — no browser required.

Installation

# Install from the github repository
npm install -g https://github.com/alschussler/rss.git --install-links

Usage

Getting Started

# Initialize the configuration file
rss --init

# Add your first feed
rss --add https://example.com/feed.xml

# Fetch and display items from all configured feeds
rss

Basic Usage

# Fetch items from all configured feeds
rss

# Fetch items from a specific feed URL
rss --url https://example.com/feed.xml

# Fetch from multiple specific feeds
rss -u https://feed1.com/rss -u https://feed2.com/rss

Filtering

# Filter by title
rss --title "release"

# Filter by author
rss --author "john"

# Filter by description (use % as wildcard)
rss --description "%security%update%"

# Filter by date range
rss --from "2024-01-01" --to "2024-12-31"

# Use current date as boundary
rss --from ""   # Items from today onwards
rss --to ""     # Items up to today

# Limit number of results (default: 10)
rss --limit 5

CLI Options

Option	Short	Description
--help	-h	Show help information
--init	-i	Initialize a new RSS feed configuration file
--add <url>	-a	Add a new RSS feed to the configuration file
--url <url>	-u	Filter from specified RSS feed (can be used multiple times)
--from <date>	-f	Filter items from a given date (empty string = today)
--to <date>	-t	Filter items to a given date (empty string = today)
--limit <n>	-l	Limit the number of items to fetch (default: 10)
--title <text>		Filter by title
--description <text>	-d	Filter by description (use % as wildcard)
--author <text>		Filter by author

Configuration

The configuration file is located at ~/.rssrc and uses JSON format:

{
  "feeds": [
    {
      "url": "https://example.com/feed.xml",
      "description": "Example Feed"
    }
  ]
}

Feed Options

Field	Description
url	The RSS feed URL
description	Optional description of the feed

How It Works

rss performs the following steps:

1. Loads configuration — Reads your saved feeds from ~/.rssrc
2. Fetches feeds — Downloads and parses XML from each feed URL
3. Applies filters — Filters items by author, title, description, and date range
4. Displays results — Shows matching items sorted by publication date

Key Features

• ✅ Terminal-native — Stay in your workflow without context switching
• ✅ Powerful filtering — Filter by author, title, description, and date range
• ✅ Wildcard matching — Use % for flexible pattern matching in descriptions
• ✅ Multi-feed support — Aggregate items from multiple feeds
• ✅ Persistent configuration — Save your favorite feeds once, use them always
• ✅ Minimal dependencies — Fast and lightweight

Notes

• The configuration file is automatically created at ~/.rssrc when you run rss --init
• Date filters accept any format parseable by JavaScript's Date constructor
• Results are sorted by publication date (oldest first)

License

ISC