RSS Reader

Aggregate, browse, and curate news and links shared across Signal groups.

Web Interface: https://rss.irregulars.io

Overview

The RSS Reader collects links shared in Signal groups and makes them browsable on the web. Features include:

• Automatic link capture from Signal messages
• Categorization (news, social, repos, documents)
• Metadata extraction (titles, descriptions, images)
• Search and filtering
• Bookmarking and comments
• Digest queuing for newsletters
• Entity graph — people, organizations, locations extracted from articles
• Entity detail pages with article history and co-occurrence data

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Signal Bot Commands

!links

Browse links shared across the community.

!links                     # Recent links from all groups
!links -c                  # Links from current group only
!links -channel            # Same as -c
!links -t 24h              # Links from last 24 hours
!links -t 7d               # Links from last 7 days
!links -trending           # Popular/trending links
!links <keyword>           # Search for keyword

Combined options:

!links -c -t 24h           # This group, last 24 hours
!links -t 7d security      # Last 7 days, matching "security"

Output:

• Link title and URL
• Source group
• Category badge
• Share count (if shared multiple times)

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Web Interface

Home Page

URL: https://rss.irregulars.io

Browse all captured links with:

• Category filters (News, Social, Repos, Documents)
• Time filters (Today, This Week, This Month)
• Group filters
• Search
• Pagination

Categories

Category	Description	Examples
News	Articles and news stories	News sites, blogs, articles
Social	Social media posts	Twitter/X, Mastodon, LinkedIn
Repositories	Code repositories	GitHub, GitLab, Gitea
Documents	Files and documents	PDFs, slides, papers

Link Cards

Each link shows:

• Title (extracted or generated)
• Preview image (when available)
• Description/summary
• Source domain
• Category badge
• Share count
• Bookmark button (authenticated)
• Comment count

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Features (Authenticated)

Login with your community account to access:

Bookmarks

Save links for later reading:

• Click bookmark icon on any link
• Add personal notes
• Tag bookmarks for organization
• View at /bookmarks

Comments

Discuss links with the community:

• Add comments to any link
• See community discussion
• Get notified of replies

Queue for Digest

Add links to the digest queue:

• Selected links appear in daily/weekly digests
• Helps curate community newsletters
• Admin feature

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Link Processing

Automatic Capture

When someone shares a link in Signal:

1. Bot detects URL in message
2. Fetches metadata (title, description, image)
3. Categorizes based on domain and content
4. Stores in database
5. Available on web interface

Metadata Extraction

The system extracts:

• Title: From Open Graph, Twitter Card, or HTML title
• Description: From meta tags or first paragraph
• Image: From og:image or Twitter Card
• Author: When available
• Published date: When available

MinIO Storage

Documents and files are stored in MinIO:

• PDFs and documents uploaded to Signal
• Presigned URLs for authenticated access
• 7-day URL expiration

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Groups Page

URL: https://rss.irregulars.io/groups

Browse links by source group:

• See which groups share the most
• Filter by specific group
• Discover active communities

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Feeds Page

URL: https://rss.irregulars.io/feeds

View RSS feed sources:

• External RSS feeds monitored by the bot
• Feed health status
• Recent items from each feed

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Entities Page

URL: https://rss.irregulars.io/entities

Explore a force-directed graph of people, organizations, and locations extracted from news articles.

Entity Graph

The graph shows co-occurrence relationships — entities that appear together in the same articles are connected with edges. Features:

• Force-directed layout — nodes repel each other, edges attract connected nodes
• Node sizing — larger nodes appear in more articles
• Community detection — label propagation groups related entities by color
• Betweenness centrality — “Bridge Score” identifies entities connecting different clusters
• Temporal trending — rising, declining, new, and stable entity indicators

Density Presets

Preset	Description
Key Players	Top entities with strong connections (30-40 nodes)
Standard	Balanced view of the network (80-100 nodes)
Full Network	Comprehensive entity map (150+ nodes)
Dense	Maximum coverage including weak connections

View Modes

• Co-occurrence (default) — edge thickness shows how often entities appear together
• PMI Surprise — highlights statistically unexpected co-occurrences using pointwise mutual information
• Temporal Trending — shows which entities are rising or declining in recent coverage

Entity Detail Pages

URL: https://rss.irregulars.io/entity/{name}

Click any entity in the graph or list to see:

• Article history — all articles mentioning this entity
• Co-occurring entities — who/what appears alongside this entity
• Trend data — recent vs previous period coverage

Entity Aliases

Common name variants are automatically merged (e.g., “USA”, “US”, “U.S.” all resolve to “United States”). Admins can manage aliases via the API.

Export

Download graph data as CSV:

• Edges CSV — source, target, weight, PMI for each connection
• Nodes CSV — name, type, articles, connections, betweenness, trend, community

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Search across all captured links:

• Full-text search on titles and descriptions
• Filter by category
• Filter by date range
• Filter by group

From Signal:

!links search <term>
!links <term>              # Same as search

From Web: Use the search bar on any page.

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Administration

Feed Management

Admins can manage RSS feed sources:

• Add/remove feeds
• Set update frequency
• Monitor feed health
• Block problematic sources

Link Moderation

Admins can moderate content:

• Delete inappropriate links
• Edit link metadata
• Block domains
• Manage user reports

Digest Management

Admins can manage digests:

• Review queued links
• Send daily/weekly digests
• Configure digest recipients

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Configuration

Environment Variables

Variable	Required	Description
RSS_ENABLED	No	Enable RSS link capture (default: true)
RSS_AUTO_SUMMARIZE	No	AI-summarize captured links

Cloudflare Worker

The RSS Reader runs as a Cloudflare Worker:

# Deploy
cd rss-reader && ./deploy.sh

# View logs
npx wrangler tail

Secrets

Required secrets (set via wrangler secret put):

• BOT_API_KEY - For bot API authentication
• OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET - For SSO authentication

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API Reference

For API documentation, see RSS Reader API.

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Troubleshooting

Links Not Appearing

Check:

1. URL was shared in a monitored group
2. Domain is not blocked
3. Link capture is enabled

Missing Metadata

Cause: Website doesn’t provide Open Graph tags

Workaround: Bot generates title from URL when metadata unavailable

Bookmarks Not Saving

Check:

1. You’re logged in
2. API key is configured in worker
3. Check browser console for errors

Images Not Loading

Check:

1. Image URL is accessible
2. CORS headers allow embedding
3. For documents: Check MinIO presigned URL expiration

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Related Pages

• RSS Reader API - Technical API documentation
• Community Dashboard - Overview of all services
• File Management - Document handling