emanueleielo/blogwatcher

Blog Watcher

Monitor blogs and news sources via RSS/Atom feeds.

When to Use

• "Check if there's anything new on [blog]"
• "Monitor this RSS feed for updates"
• "What's the latest on [tech blog]?"
• Setting up scheduled blog monitoring

Commands

Fetch an RSS Feed

curl -s "https://example.com/feed" | head -100

Common Feed URL Patterns

Most blogs have feeds at predictable URLs:

• /feed or /rss or /atom.xml
• /feed.xml or /index.xml
• WordPress: /feed/
• Medium: /feed
• Substack: /feed

Extract Titles and Links

# Titles
curl -s "https://example.com/feed" | grep -oP '(?<=<title>).*?(?=</title>)'

# Links
curl -s "https://example.com/feed" | grep -oP '(?<=<link>).*?(?=</link>)'

JSON Feed (if available)

curl -s "https://example.com/feed/json" | jq '.items[:5] | .[] | {title, url, date_published}'

Workflow: Periodic Monitoring

1. Find the blog's RSS feed URL
2. Verify it works: curl -s "URL" | head -20
3. Set up a scheduled task with schedule_task to check periodically
4. Save last-seen entries to compare on next check

Notes

• No API key needed
• Works with any standard RSS 2.0 or Atom feed
• Some sites block curl — add a User-Agent: curl -s -H "User-Agent: CianaParrot/1.0" "URL"
• Use schedule_task for periodic monitoring