Instapaper RSS

Subscribe to RSS/Atom feeds and save items to Instapaper.

Quick start

1. Add your Instapaper cookies to config/cookies.yml
2. Configure the RSS feeds you would like to subscribe to in config/sources.yml
3. Run command make run

Sources YAML

In the config/sources.yml the following attributes may be used:

Attribute	Description	Required
url	The URL to the RSS feed, a webpage which has an RSS feed, or an Instagram profile	Required
description	A description of what the source is	Optional
priority	Priority name from config/priorities.yml. If omitted, default_priority from config/settings.yml is used	Optional
wrappers	Ordered list of wrapper names to apply to the entry URL	Optional
blacklist_regex	A regex pattern to match against the title of the RSS item. If it matches, the item will not be saved	Optional
whitelist_regex	A regex pattern to match against the title of the RSS item. If it matches, the item will be saved	Optional
allowed_languages	A list of allowable languages for the RSS item's title to be writen in, in order to be saved	Optional

Wrappers

Wrappers let you transform where an item is saved or viewed. Each template takes the original entry URL and nests it into another URL before it is sent to Instapaper.

Wrappers are defined in config/wrappers.yml as a mapping of wrapper names to URL templates containing {url}. The {url} placeholder is replaced with the entry URL and wrappers are applied in the order listed per feed. Two wrappers are included by default:

• summarise: Sends the entry URL to Perplexity with a summarisation prompt.
• archive: Saves via Archive.today
• en_translate: Translates the page via Google Translate to English.

Settings

The application reads configuration values from config/settings.yml. The following keys are supported:

• testing_mode: When true the program will not actually save entries to Instapaper; it will only print what it would do. Useful for development and testing.
• default_priority: Priority name to use for feeds that do not set priority explicitly in config/sources.yml.

Priority rules are defined in config/priorities.yml. Each priority is a mapping with:

• check_every: Process the feed once every N eligible runs. Runs are staggered by feed URL hash so feeds with the same priority do not all process at once.
• time_ranges: Optional list of local-time windows. A feed is only eligible while the current time falls within one of these ranges.
• days: Required list inside each time_ranges item to define which days the window applies to (mon, tue, wed, thu, fri, sat, sun).

Example:

high:
	check_every: 1
	time_ranges:
		- days: [mon, tue, wed, thu, fri, sat, sun]
			start: "00:00"
			end: "23:59"

normal:
	check_every: 3
	time_ranges:
		- days: [mon, tue, wed, thu, fri]
			start: "16:30"
			end: "22:59"
		- days: [sat, sun]
			start: "00:00"
			end: "23:59"

low:
	check_every: 3
	time_ranges:
		- days: [mon, tue, wed, thu, fri, sat, sun]
			start: "18:00"
			end: "22:59"

You can add your own priorities by editing config/priorities.yml and then referencing the new priority name from config/sources.yml.

Setting up Auto-run

A reccomended way to use this tool:

1. Set up an internet-connected always-on computer (such as a Raspberry Pi)
2. Unstall uv on that computer
3. Update REMOTE_LOGIN_IDENTIFIER and REMOTE_PATH in the Makefile to your choice
4. Run command make deploy
5. Add crontab 0 * * * * cd /home/pi/Documents/instapaper-rss && PATH="/home/pi/.local/bin:$PATH" make run > /home/pi/log.txt 2>&1