rss-pod

Turn RSS feeds into durable, self-hosted AI podcasts.

简体中文 · Quick start · Container images

rss-pod is a Go application that turns RSS items into conversational podcast episodes. It resolves source content, asks an OpenAI-compatible LLM for a structured multi-speaker script, synthesizes audio with Edge TTS or Azure Speech, publishes media to S3-compatible storage, and exposes both podcast feeds and a lightweight web player.

The complete workflow is durable: business state and background jobs live in PostgreSQL with River, so interrupted episodes can resume from completed stages instead of starting over.

[!NOTE] rss-pod is an early-stage self-hosted project. Configuration and migrations are explicit, and the default example keeps every feed disabled.

Inspiration

rss-pod was inspired by Zenfeed, a powerful and feature-rich RSS + AI project. I wanted a smaller, operations-focused system shaped around my own self-hosted podcast workflow: some of Zenfeed's broader capabilities were outside my needs, while jobs orchestration and the listening experience called for a different set of choices. That narrower focus led to rss-pod.

Highlights

• RSS, derived RSS, and Jina-backed content expansion
• OpenAI-compatible LLM providers with ordered fallback
• Reusable two-speaker dialogue profiles and strict script validation
• Edge TTS, Azure Speech, and Azure MultiTalker support
• Durable PostgreSQL + River job orchestration with retries and resumability
• S3/MinIO storage for source material, intermediate artifacts, and media
• Read-only public player separated from the loopback-only management API
• One static Go binary and one multi-platform container image

How it works

flowchart LR
    RSS[RSS feeds] --> Source[source]
    Source --> Content[content]
    Content --> LLM[LLM script]
    LLM --> TTS[TTS segments]
    TTS --> Media[media publish]
    Media --> Player[web player]
    Media --> Feed[podcast RSS]

    DB[(PostgreSQL + River)] --- Source
    DB --- Content
    DB --- LLM
    DB --- TTS
    DB --- Media
    S3[(S3 / MinIO)] --- Content
    S3 --- TTS
    S3 --- Media

Quick start

Prerequisites

• Go 1.26.2 or a compatible newer toolchain
• PostgreSQL
• S3-compatible object storage such as MinIO
• At least one OpenAI-compatible LLM endpoint
• Edge TTS and/or Azure Speech

Need an OpenAI-compatible LLM provider? SiliconFlow offers a broad model catalog and works with rss-pod's provider configuration. Register through this referral link and complete identity verification, and you and the project maintainer can each receive ¥16 in platform credit—enough for plenty of personal testing and light use.

Create local configuration files:

cp config.example.yaml config.yaml
cp .env.example .env

Edit both files for your services, then validate and start the application:

go test ./...
go run ./cmd/rss-pod check
go run ./cmd/rss-pod migrate
go run ./cmd/rss-pod run

The public player listens on :8080. Health checks and management endpoints listen on 127.0.0.1:8081 and are intentionally unavailable on the public listener.

The main commands are:

Docker

Build the image locally:

docker build -t rss-pod:dev .

Run migrations and then start the combined service with your local secrets and configuration mounted read-only:

docker run --rm \
  --env-file .env \
  --volume "$PWD/config.yaml:/app/config.yaml:ro" \
  rss-pod:dev migrate --config /app/config.yaml

docker run --detach \
  --name rss-pod \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  --publish 127.0.0.1:8080:8080 \
  --env-file .env \
  --volume "$PWD/config.yaml:/app/config.yaml:ro" \
  rss-pod:dev run --config /app/config.yaml

Mount prompts/ as well when you maintain a deployment-specific prompt.

Container images

GitHub Actions validates the Docker build on every pull request and push to main. Version tags matching v*.*.* publish linux/amd64 and linux/arm64 images to:

ghcr.io/synrise25/rss-pod

Published tags include the full semantic version, the major/minor version, and latest.

Configuration

• config.example.yaml — publishable configuration reference with bilingual comments; copy it to ignored config.yaml before use
• .env.example — environment variables referenced by the configuration
• CONTRIBUTING.md — development and pull request guidance

Real credentials belong in environment variables or a secret manager. Never commit .env or a deployment-specific config.yaml.

Security model

The public listener serves only the player and read-only /api/v1/player/* routes. Health checks, polling, retries, database-backed queries, and podcast management routes are bound to a loopback-only listener. Do not publish the management port from a container or reverse proxy it to the internet.

License

Released under the MIT License.