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RSS Watch

RSS Watch

RSS Watch is the Tools service for collecting, reading, and following content from RSS sources and websites monitored by the service. The public documentation describes how the collected material can be read and used. The collection and worker pipeline itself is internal operations and is not a public API for creating or writing your own entries.

Public feed

The main reader is available at /feed.

It can be used to:

  • browse feeds and categories
  • search stored content
  • open an individual feed or category
  • open the magazine-style Cards view for a category or for one individual site
  • inspect article versions and changes when history is available
  • read stored AI summaries and period analyses where enabled
  • use the category views at /feed/c/{categorySlug} and /feed/cards/{categorySlug}
  • use the individual-site magazine view at /feed/{id}/cards
  • use /feed/key/{publicHash}/cards for a hidden feed when you have been given its public hash link
  • open hidden feeds through their dedicated public hash URL when you have been given such a link

Each expanded site card in the main feed browser has a Cards action beside the normal feed and RSS actions. The site magazine view is scoped to that single feed: its article grid contains only entries from the selected site, and the analysis cards use that site's own daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly AI analyses when available. Pagination, history mode, history limits, and article diffs remain available in the magazine presentation. Switching between the selected analysis and all analysis variants keeps the current magazine controls in place.

RSS Watch stores history so it can show how captured content changed over time. An RSS Watch entry therefore does not necessarily represent a standalone article copy; it can represent a captured version of content from an external source.

Public RSS and read APIs

The production host is https://tools.tornevall.net.

Public read requests include:

  • GET /api/rss - list publicly available feeds and categories
  • GET /api/rss/feed/{selector} - retrieve a feed by numeric id, category slug, public hash, or a supported analytics selector

Example:

https://tools.tornevall.net/api/rss/feed/1

Analytics feeds can also be read through daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and bulk selectors when the corresponding analyses exist.

Worker ingestion, scheduling, internal update, and maintenance endpoints are intentionally not documented in the public guide. They are part of the Tools operational contract and must not be used to create custom RSS Watch entries.

Questions against the feed archive

/feed includes the "Ask about all open feeds" feature for questions against open RSS data. Question history is available at /feed/user-questions.

Guest use is protected by Cloudflare Turnstile and quotas. Signed-in users have their own quotas, while administrators have expanded access for operations and review.

Subscriptions

Signed-in users can use RSS Watch subscriptions where available to receive updates from selected feeds or categories. The delivery channels shown depend on the current Tools configuration and services connected by the user.

Crawler identity

Website operators may see RSS Watch traffic when the service fetches a configured source. Current workers identify themselves as RSSWatchBot and link back to this documentation in their User-Agent. That information is public so site operators can understand why Tools is fetching a page and who is responsible for the traffic.

Internal worker ids, log paths, payload formats, and write requests are not part of the public integration surface.

Corrections and removal requests

Questions about a feed, incorrect material, corrections, or removal requests can be sent through the Tools contact page or to support@tornevall.net.

History

RSS Watch predates the current Tools implementation by many years. The project started around 2010 as an RSS reader with an unusual focus on detecting changes to already published text, disappearing posts, and edited comments. It has since been shut down, revived, and rebuilt across several generations.

See RSS Watch - project history for the preserved development timeline and its source material.