Blog post workflow

How to use

1. Star this repo 😉

2. Go to your repository

3. Add the following section to your README.md file, you can give whatever title you want. Just make sure that you use <!-- BLOG-POST-LIST:START --><!-- BLOG-POST-LIST:END --> in your readme. The workflow will replace this comment with the actual blog post list:

   # Blog posts
   <!-- BLOG-POST-LIST:START -->
   <!-- BLOG-POST-LIST:END -->

4. Create a folder named .github and create a workflows folder inside it, if it doesn't exist.

5. Create a new file named blog-post-workflow.yml with the following contents inside the workflows folder:

   name: Latest blog post workflow
   on:
     schedule: # Run workflow automatically
       - cron: '0 * * * *' # Runs every hour, on the hour
     workflow_dispatch: # Run workflow manually (without waiting for the cron to be called), through the GitHub Actions Workflow page directly
   permissions:
     contents: write # To write the generated contents to the readme
   
   jobs:
     update-readme-with-blog:
       name: Update this repo's README with latest blog posts
       runs-on: ubuntu-latest
       steps:
         - name: Checkout
           uses: actions/checkout@v4
         - name: Pull in dev.to posts
           uses: gautamkrishnar/blog-post-workflow@v1
           with:
             feed_list: "https://dev.to/feed/gautamkrishnar,https://www.gautamkrishnar.com/feed/"

6. Replace the above URL list with your own RSS feed URLs. See popular-sources for a list of common RSS feed urls. Commit the changes.

7. Go to repository settings, Click on Actions > General. Update the "Workflow permissions" to "Read and write permissions". Click on save.

   

8. Wait for it to run automatically, or you can also trigger it manually to see the result instantly. To trigger the workflow manually, please follow the steps in the video.

Options

This workflow has additional options that you can use to customize it for your use case. The following are the list of options available:

Option	Default Value	Description	Required
feed_list	""	Comma-separated list of RSS feed urls, eg: https://example1.com,https://example2.com	Yes
max_post_count	5	Maximum number of posts you want to show on your readme, all feeds combined	No
readme_path	./README.md	Comma separated paths of the readme files you want to update	No
gh_token	your GitHub token with repo scope	Use this to configure the token of the user that commits the workflow result to GitHub	No
comment_tag_name	BLOG-POST-LIST	Allows you to override the default comment tag name (<!-- BLOG-POST-LIST:START --><!-- BLOG-POST-LIST:END -->), if you want to show multiple instances of the action on the same repo, see advanced usage for more info	No
disable_sort	false	Disables the sorting of the list based on publish date	No
feed_names	""	Comma-separated list of RSS feed names, this is intended to be used with template option. eg: Blog,Dev.to	No
template	default	Allows you to change the structure of the posts list by using different variables. By default this workflow uses markdown list format to render the posts, you can override this behavior using this option. Eg: [$title]($url) will give you a space-separated list of posts. Supported variables $title: Title of the post $url: URL of the post $description: Description of the post $newline: Inserts a newline $date: Inserts the post date based on the date_format specified $randomEmoji: Allow you to use random emojis in the post, pass emojis as the parameter to chose one of it randomly in each post item. Eg: $randomEmoji(💯,🔥,💫,🚀,🌮). See the issue comment for more details $emojiKey: You can use this argument to show emojis on each of your post item sequentially in the order you specify. Example: $emojiKey(💯,🔥,💫). See the issue comment for more details $counter: You can use this argument to show a serial number on each of your post items. $feedName: You can use this argument to show a string that represents your website name, use feed_names argument to specify it for each feed item. Eg: feed_list: "https://dev.to/feed/gautamkrishnar,https://www.gautamkrishnar.com/feed/", feed_names: "Dev.to,Personal Website" $categories: You can use this to show a comma separated list of post categories if available. See this issue for more details	No
categories_template	default	By default $categories variable in the template is a comma separated string of categories. This option will allow you override it and customize the category item according to your use case. Following are the variables available: $category: Represents individual category item eg: <code>$category</code> will show category list as category1 category2 category3 etc	No
date_format	UTC:ddd mmm dd yyyy h:MM TT	Allows you to change the format of the date or time displayed when using the $date in the template option. This uses NPM dateformat library, please read the library documentation for the supported formats	No
user_agent	rss-parser	Allows you to customize the user agent used by the RSS feed crawler	No
accept_header	application/rss+xml	Allows you to customize the accept header of the http requests	No
tag_post_pre_newline	true if you are not using template option	Allows you to insert a newline before the closing tag and after the opening tag when using the template option if needed, for better formatting	No
filter_comments	stackoverflow/Comment by $author/,stackexchange/Comment by $author/	Comma separated list of platforms you want to enable the comment filter. Available filters stackoverflow/Comment by $author/: Allows you to filter out the StackOverflow comments. Argument to this filter is optional, it defaults to 'Comment by $author'. If you use any language other than English on StackOverflow, you can use this argument to customize it. See #16 for more info. stackexchange/Comment by $author/: Allows you to filter out the StackExchange comments. Argument to this filter follows the same format as stackoverflow filter's argument.	No
custom_tags	""	Allows you to use the custom tags from your feed items in your template. Format: variableName/tagName/,variableName/tagName/. Please see the issue comment for more details	No
title_max_length	""	Allows you to trim the title in the posts list, excess text will be appended with an ellipsis ...	No
description_max_length	""	Allows you to trim the description in the posts list, excess text will be appended with an ellipsis ...	No
item_exec	""	Allows you to execute custom JavaScript code on each post item fetched from the xml to do advanced text manipulation. Please see the issue comment as an example	No
commit_message	Updated with the latest blog posts	Allows you to customize the commit message	No
committer_username	blog-post-bot	Allows you to customize the committer username	No
committer_email	[email protected]	Allows you to customize the committer email	No
output_only	false	Sets the generated array as results output variable so that it can be consumed in other actions and parsed via utilities like jq. This will also prevent committing to readme. See #51 for more details about the output format and how to use it. This will also generate a JSON file named /tmp/blog_post_workflow_output.json that you can use to consume the generated data and avoid issues like #110.	No
enable_keepalive	true	Workflow will automatically do a dummy commit to keep the repository active if there is no commit activity for the last 50 days. GitHub will stop running all cron based triggers if the repository is not active for more than 60 days. This flag allows you to disable this feature. See #53 for more details.	No
retry_count	0	Maximum number of times to retry the fetch operation if it fails, See #66 for more details.	No
retry_wait_time	1	Time to wait before each retry operation in seconds.	No
disable_html_encoding	false	Disables html encoding of the feed contents.	No
disable_item_validation	false	Disables the validation checks for Title, publish date and URL.	No
filter_dates	""	Allows you to filter post items based on date range. Supported Values daysAgo/N/: Use this value to display only the posts from the last N days. eg: daysAgo/10/ will show only posts from last 10 days. currentMonth: Use this value to display the post that are published on current month. currentYear: Use this value to display the post that are published on current year. Make sure that you set the max_post_count to a higher value to get rid of max post count filtering, before using the above options.	No
rand_seed	"username/repository"	Provide your own seeding string for the randomness. More info: #152	No
remove_duplicates	false	Allows you to remove duplicate blog posts from multiple sources, if are cross posting. This filters contents based on blog post's title.	No
skip_commit	false	Allows you to prevent the workflow from creating a new commit in the repository. Nevertheless of this option, changes to the readme will be made. This is particularly useful if you want to do the commits manually using the git cli or another workflow. One of the important thing to note is that the workflow will still do the keepalive commits, if you want to disable it you can use the enable_keepalive option instead.	No
dummy_commit_message	dummy commit to keep the repository active, see https://git.io/Jtm4V	Dummy commit message, This is when the workflow is doing automated commits to keep the repository active	No

Advanced usage examples

Click to expand:

StackOverflow example

The following configuration allows you to show your latest StackOverflow activity along with your latest blog posts in the GitHub profile or project readme:

1. Follow the steps mentioned in the how to use section.
2. Add the following section to your README.md file, you can give whatever title you want. Just make sure that you use <!-- STACKOVERFLOW:START --><!-- STACKOVERFLOW:END --> in your readme. The workflow will replace this comment with the actual StackOverflow activity:

   # StackOverflow Activity
   <!-- STACKOVERFLOW:START -->
   <!-- STACKOVERFLOW:END -->

3. Create stack-overflow-workflow.yml in your workflows folder with the following contents, replace 4214976 with your StackOverflow user ID:

   name: Latest stack overflow activity
   on:
     schedule:
       # Runs every 5 minutes
       - cron: '*/5 * * * *'
     workflow_dispatch:
   permissions:
     contents: write
     
   jobs:
     update-readme-with-stack-overflow:
       name: Update this repo's README with latest activity from StackOverflow
       runs-on: ubuntu-latest
       steps:
         - uses: actions/checkout@v4
         - uses: gautamkrishnar/blog-post-workflow@v1
           with:
             comment_tag_name: "STACKOVERFLOW"
             commit_message: "Updated readme with the latest stackOverflow data"
             feed_list: "https://stackoverflow.com/feeds/user/4214976"

See the result!

Blog post table

workflow.yml

name: Latest stack oveflow activity
on:
  workflow_dispatch:
  schedule:
    - cron:  '0 * * * *'
permissions:
      contents: write
jobs:
  update-readme-with-blog:
    name: Update this repo's README with latest activity from StackOverflow
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: gautamkrishnar/blog-post-workflow@v1
        with:
          comment_tag_name: "STACKOVERFLOW"
          feed_list: "https://stackoverflow.com/feeds/user/4214976"
          template: "<tr><td>$title</td><td>$url</td></tr>"

Readme.md

### Latest StackOveflow activity of [@gautamkrishnar](https://github.com/gautamkrishnar)
<table>
  <tr><th>Title</th><th>Link</th></tr>
  <!-- STACKOVERFLOW:START --><!-- STACKOVERFLOW:END -->
</table>

Preview: https://github.com/gkr-bot/gkr-bot#latest-stackoveflow-activity-of-gautamkrishnar

Results

Youtube videos table

workflow.yml

name: Latest YouTube Videos
on:
  schedule:
    # Runs every hour, on the hour
    - cron: "0 * * * *"
  workflow_dispatch:
permissions:
      contents: write

jobs:
  update-readme-with-youtube:
    name: Update this repo's README with latest videos from YouTube
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: gautamkrishnar/blog-post-workflow@master
        with:
          feed_list: "https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCtvnB6R__6vdyjUEbDgAWHw"
          custom_tags: "channelId/yt:channelId/,videoId/yt:videoId/"
          date_format: "mmm d, yyyy"
          template: '<table><tr><td><a href="$url"><img width="140px" src="http://img.youtube.com/vi/$videoId/maxresdefault.jpg"></a></td>$newline<td><a href="$url">$title</a><br/>$date</td></tr></table>$newline'
          committer_email: "[email protected]"

Preview: https://github.com/Dexters-Hub/Dexters-Hub

Results

Latest Podcast Episode from Anchor

workflow.yml

name: Latest RadioGeek (Anchor)
on:
  schedule:
    # Runs “At 00:00 on Friday.”
    - cron: '0 0 * * FRI'
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  update-readme-with-anchor:
    name: Update this repo's README with latest RadioGeek podcast feed from Anchor
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - uses: gautamkrishnar/blog-post-workflow@master
        with:
          comment_tag_name: "RadioGeek-Anchor-feed"
          feed_list: "https://anchor.fm/s/6048890/podcast/rss"
          max_post_count: 1000
          commit_message: "🔥Update with lastest RadioGeek feed"
          committer_username: "🤖RadioGeek-Bot"
          committer_email: "<>"
          date_format: 'UTC: yyyy-mm-dd'
          template: "$newline #### - [$title]($url) $newline <details><summary>توضیحات</summary> $description </details> $newline <hr /> $newline"
          # Regex for remove HTML TAG:    /(<([^>]+)>)/ig
          item_exec: "post.description = post.description.replace('','')"
          disable_html_encoding: true

by : Mahdi Qiamast

Results

Update an index.html file (instead of README.md) with a list from blogspot

First, create an index.html file in your github repo and insert the tags in the file where you want the update to take place. Use appropriate html wrappers outside the tags so that the inserted list is rendered properly (see results below).

workflow.yml

Then in the repo where you want to update the index.html, follow the steps about github actions mentioned above, and create the blog-post-workflow.yml.

name: Latest blog post workflow
on:
  schedule:
    # Runs every hour, on the hour
    - cron: "0 * * * *"
  workflow_dispatch:
permissions:
      contents: write

jobs:
  update-readme-with-youtube:
    name: Update this repo's index.html with latest blog titles from blogspot
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: gautamkrishnar/blog-post-workflow@v1
        with:
          readme_path: 'index.html'
          feed_list: "http://blog_name.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss"
          template: '<li><a href="$url">$title</a></li>$newline'
          committer_email: "[email protected]"

by Mukto Akash

Results

Popular Sources

Some popular blogging platforms and their RSS feed URLs (Click to expand)

Name	Feed URL	Comments	Example
Dev.to	https://dev.to/feed/username	Replace username with your own username	https://dev.to/feed/gautamkrishnar
Wordpress	https://www.example.com/feed/	Replace with your own blog url	https://www.gautamkrishnar.com/feed/
Medium	https://medium.com/feed/@username	Replace username with your Medium username	https://medium.com/feed/@khaosdoctor
Medium (Sub Domain)	https://username.medium.com/feed	Replace username with your Medium username	https://timsneath.medium.com/feed
Stackoverflow	https://stackoverflow.com/feeds/user/userid	Replace with your StackOverflow UserId	https://stackoverflow.com/feeds/user/5283532
StackExchange	https://subdomain.stackexchange.com/feeds/user/userid	Replace with your StackExchange UserId and sub-domain	https://devops.stackexchange.com/feeds/user/15
Ghost	https://www.example.com/rss/	Replace with your own blog url	https://blog.codinghorror.com/rss/
Drupal	https://www.example.com/rss.xml	Replace with your own blog url	https://www.arsenal.com/rss.xml
Hugo	https://BASE_URL/post/index.xml	Replace BASE_URL(doc) with your blog url. Refer to the official Hugo or your theme documentation for more info	https://davidaparicio.gitlab.io/website/fr/post/index.xml
Youtube Playlists	https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=playlistId	Replace playlistId with your own Youtube playlist id	https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=PLJNqgDLpd5E69Kc664st4j7727sbzyx0X
Youtube Channel Video list	https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=channelId	Replace channelId with your own Youtube channel id	https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCDCHcqyeQgJ-jVSd6VJkbCw
Anchor.fm Podcasts	https://anchor.fm/s/podcastId/podcast/rss	You can get the rss feed url of a podcast by following these instructions	https://anchor.fm/s/1e784a38/podcast/rss
Hashnode	https://@username.hashnode.dev/rss.xml	Replace @username with your Hashnode username	https://polilluminato.hashnode.dev/rss.xml
Google Podcasts	https://podcasts.google.com/feed/channelId	Replace channelId with your Google podcast channel Id	https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zb3VuZGNsb3VkLmNvbS91c2Vycy9zb3VuZGNsb3VkOnVzZXJzOjYyOTIxMTkwL3NvdW5kcy5yc3M=
Reddit	http://www.reddit.com/r/topic/.rss	You can create an RSS feed by adding '.rss' to the end of an existing Reddit URL. Replace topic with SubReddit topic that interest you or localized to you.	http://www.reddit.com/r/news/.rss
Analytics India Magazine	https://analyticsindiamag.com/author/author_name/feed/	Replace author_name with your name	https://analyticsindiamag.com/author/kaustubhgupta1828gmail-com/feed/
Feedburner	https://feeds.feedburner.com/feed_address	Replace feed_address with your Feedburner feed address	https://feeds.feedburner.com/darkwood-fr/blog
Tumblr	https://blog_name.tumblr.com/rss or https://example.com/rss	You can create an RSS feed by adding '/rss' to your main blog page or to your own domain if it is configured. Replace blog_name with your blog name	https://goggledoddle.tumblr.com/rss
Blogger	https://blog_name.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default	Replace blog_name with your blog subdomain	https://singlebucks.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
Velog	https://v2.velog.io/rss/userid	Replace userid with your user id (without the @ symbol)	https://v2.velog.io/rss/minnczi
Shouts.dev	https://shouts.dev/feed/username	Replace username with your own username	https://shouts.dev/feed/obydul
Gist	https://gist.github.com/username.atom	Replace username with your own username	https://gist.github.com/banyudu.atom
Tistory	https://blog_name.tistory.com/rss	Replace blog_name with your blog subdomain	https://helicopter55.tistory.com/rss
NAVER	https://rss.blog.naver.com/blog_id.xml	Replace blog_id with your NAVER blog id	https://rss.blog.naver.com/bnbong.xml
Substack	https://user.substack.com/feed/	Replace user with your substack username	https://nathanielchitnis/substack.com/feed/
Daily Dev Bookmarks	https://api.daily.dev/rss/b/feed/feed_id	Replace feed_id with your feed id	https://api.daily.dev/rss/b/3318cf63-8b45-4d1c-9cf0-ee79196d59a8
rss.app	https://api.daily.dev/rss/b/feed/custom_feed_id	You can use rss.app to generate RSS feeds from a lots of supported sources including Instagram, x etc. See a list of supported sources here	https://api.daily.dev/rss/b/3318cf63-8b45-4d1c-9cf0-ee79196d59a8

Examples

• My own GitHub profile readme - YML File

FAQs and Common issues

• Error Code 128
• Looks like your website returned *XXX*, There is nothing blog post workflow can do to fix it. Please check your website's RSS feed generation source code. Also double check the URL.: This will happen if your website is blocking requests from the GitHub IP addresses. It can also happen if you give the workflow an invalid URL. First, check your URL. If it's working fine on your computer, then try debugging it using https://github.com/marketplace/actions/debugging-with-tmate establish an ssh connection with the Github runner and try to curl -I <URL> This will give you a 200 status code if your website is responding correctly. If its not responding with 200, you need to check your website's feed generation source code, you can also contact your hosting provider/DNS provider to know if they are blocking the GitHub public IP address. Some companies do that to prevent spam and DDOS attacks. As the message says there is nothing I can do to fix this issue, it needs to be sorted out with your hosting provider.

Demo video

Please see the video by @codeSTACKr.

Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for getting started with the contribution.

Make sure that you follow CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md while contributing and engaging in the discussions.

When contributing, please first discuss the change you wish to make via an issue on this repository before making the actual change.

ToDo

• Add more sources
• Fix bugs if any

Bugs

If you are experiencing any bugs, don’t forget to open a new issue.

Thanks to

• All the 9K+✨ users of this workflow
• Everyone for making this project the top 20 most installed / starred action in the GitHub Marketplace
• @codeSTACKr for this amazing video
• CodeCov for this blog: Discovering the Most Popular and Most Used GitHub Actions
• the byte podcast
• JetBrains for sponsoring the Open Source License to my favorite IDE WebStorm:

• Thanks @github, for GitHub India Open Source Grants and for sponsoring me
• Thanks Tutanota for sponsoring free encrypted emails for my opensource projects:

Contributors ✨

Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):

Lucas Santos 💻 📖	Michael Currin 📖	WY 📖	Hussaina Begum 📖	Rigin Oommen 📖	Alberto Bonacina 📖	Vadorequest 📖
Jonah Lawrence 💻	Tim Myers 📖	Kaustubh Gupta 📖	Mathieu Ledru 📖	Aditya Dharmawan Saputra 📖	Minji 📖	Dhanushka Madushan 📖
Curtis Timson 💻	Md Obydullah 📖	David Aparicio 📖	Yudu 📖	Changhun Lee 📖	Adrián Paniagua 📖	Mukto Akash 📖

This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!

Liked it?

Hope you liked this project, don't forget to give it a star ⭐.