RSS Agent Discovery

AI agent-focused RSS feed discovery tool with machine-parseable JSON output.

Quick start

npx -y rss-agent-discovery https://vercel.com

Output:

{
  "success": true,
  "results": [{
    "url": "https://vercel.com/",
    "feeds": [{
      "url": "https://vercel.com/atom",
      "title": "atom",
      "type": "atom"
    }],
    "error": null,
    "diagnostics": []
  }]
}

Core workflow

npx -y rss-agent-discovery <url> [url2] [url3]...

Parse JSON output:

npx -y rss-agent-discovery https://example.com | jq '.results[0].feeds'

Output schema

{
  success: boolean,           // true if no URLs had errors
  partialResults?: boolean,   // true if success=false but some feeds found
  results: [{
    url: string,              // scanned URL
    feeds: [{
      url: string,            // feed URL
      title: string,          // feed title from HTML
      type: 'rss' | 'atom' | 'unknown'
    }],
    error: string | null,     // error message if scan failed (timeout errors normalized to "Timeout")
    diagnostics?: string[]    // optional array of warning messages for non-fatal issues
  }]
}

Output contract

Default behavior (without --verbose):

• JSON-only output to stdout (machine-parseable)
• No stderr output (clean for programmatic consumption)
• All errors and warnings included in JSON structure

Verbose mode (--verbose):

• JSON output to stdout (unchanged)
• Debug logging to stderr (useful for troubleshooting)
• Additional context about skipped URLs, validation failures, etc.

Recommended integration pattern:

1. Parse stdout as JSON (always valid JSON, even on errors)
2. Check success field for overall status
3. Check partialResults if success === false to see if any feeds were found
4. Check error field in each result for URL-specific failures
5. Check diagnostics array for warnings and non-fatal issues
6. Use --verbose flag only when troubleshooting or debugging

Exit codes

• 0 – One or more feeds found (or --help / --version used)
• 1 – No feeds found
• 2 – Error occurred

Use exit code for automation:

npx -y rss-agent-discovery https://example.com
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
  echo "Feeds found!"
fi

Options

--timeout <ms>          # Timeout per URL (default: 10000)
--skip-blogs           # Skip blog subdirectory scanning
--max-blogs <n>        # Limit blog scans (default: 3)
--blog-paths <paths>   # Custom blog paths (comma or pipe separated)
--verbose              # Enable debug logging to stderr (default: JSON-only output)
--help                 # Show help
--version              # Show version

Examples:

npx -y rss-agent-discovery --timeout 15000 https://example.com
npx -y rss-agent-discovery --skip-blogs https://example.com
npx -y rss-agent-discovery --blog-paths '/blog,/news,/articles' https://example.com
npx -y rss-agent-discovery --blog-paths '/blog|/updates' https://example.com
npx -y rss-agent-discovery --max-blogs 5 https://example.com

Features

• Discovers feeds from HTML <link> tags
• Tests common paths (/rss.xml, /atom, /feed, etc.)
• Scans blog subdirectories (/blog, /news, /articles)
• Parallel processing for multiple URLs
• Deduplicates feeds across all sources
• Validates feeds actually return XML
• JSON-only output to stdout (clean by default, no stderr)
• Errors and warnings included in JSON structure
• Timeout errors normalized to consistent “Timeout” message

Common patterns

Single URL discovery

npx -y rss-agent-discovery https://example.com | jq '.results[0].feeds[].url'

Multiple URLs (parallel)

npx -y rss-agent-discovery https://site1.com https://site2.com https://site3.com

Extract all feed URLs

npx -y rss-agent-discovery https://example.com | jq -r '.results[0].feeds[].url'

Check if feeds exist without parsing

npx -y rss-agent-discovery https://example.com
exit_code=$?
[ $exit_code -eq 0 ] && echo "Feeds found"

Custom timeout for slow sites

npx -y rss-agent-discovery --timeout 20000 https://slow-site.com

Skip blog scanning for faster results

npx -y rss-agent-discovery --skip-blogs https://example.com

Integration examples

Shell script

#!/bin/bash
# No need to redirect stderr - it's clean by default
result=$(npx -y rss-agent-discovery "$1")
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
  echo "Found feeds:"
  echo "$result" | jq '.results[0].feeds'
fi

Python

import subprocess
import json

result = subprocess.run(
  ['npx', '-y', 'rss-agent-discovery', url],
  capture_output=True,
  text=True
)

if result.returncode == 0:
  data = json.loads(result.stdout)
  feeds = data['results'][0]['feeds']

JavaScript/Node.js

const { execSync } = require('child_process');
const result = JSON.parse(
  execSync('npx -y rss-agent-discovery https://example.com').toString()
);
const feeds = result.results[0].feeds;

Why use this tool

Existing RSS discovery tools (rss-url-finder, rss-finder) are designed for humans:

• Output human-readable text
• Don’t validate feeds exist
• Lack structured machine output

This tool is designed for AI agents:

• JSON-only output to stdout (machine-parseable)
• Clean output by default (no stderr unless --verbose is enabled)
• All errors and warnings included in JSON structure
• Semantic exit codes
• Validates feeds return XML
• Timeout errors normalized to consistent format
• Discovers feeds AI agents miss

Testing

Test the tool works:

npx -y rss-agent-discovery https://vercel.com
npx -y rss-agent-discovery https://news.ycombinator.com

More information

• NPM: https://www.npmjs.com/package/rss-agent-discovery
• GitHub: https://github.com/brooksy4503/rss-agent-discovery