{"id":26159944,"url":"https://github.com/capjamesg/web-feed-recovery","last_synced_at":"2026-04-21T12:01:59.702Z","repository":{"id":269217884,"uuid":"906755065","full_name":"capjamesg/web-feed-recovery","owner":"capjamesg","description":"Try to identify new versions of feeds that now return a 404.","archived":false,"fork":false,"pushed_at":"2024-12-23T13:40:46.000Z","size":28,"stargazers_count":0,"open_issues_count":0,"forks_count":0,"subscribers_count":1,"default_branch":"main","last_synced_at":"2025-03-10T18:00:44.917Z","etag":null,"topics":["atom","feed-reader-testing","feed-reading","rss"],"latest_commit_sha":null,"homepage":"","language":"Python","has_issues":true,"has_wiki":null,"has_pages":null,"mirror_url":null,"source_name":null,"license":"mit","status":null,"scm":"git","pull_requests_enabled":true,"icon_url":"https://github.com/capjamesg.png","metadata":{"files":{"readme":"README.md","changelog":null,"contributing":null,"funding":null,"license":"LICENSE","code_of_conduct":null,"threat_model":null,"audit":null,"citation":null,"codeowners":null,"security":null,"support":null,"governance":null,"roadmap":null,"authors":null,"dei":null,"publiccode":null,"codemeta":null}},"created_at":"2024-12-21T20:06:49.000Z","updated_at":"2024-12-23T13:40:49.000Z","dependencies_parsed_at":"2024-12-21T21:19:46.903Z","dependency_job_id":"ce97bda3-8576-4394-aa5d-6225b2bb3af8","html_url":"https://github.com/capjamesg/web-feed-recovery","commit_stats":null,"previous_names":["capjamesg/web-feed-recovery"],"tags_count":0,"template":false,"template_full_name":null,"repository_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/capjamesg%2Fweb-feed-recovery","tags_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/capjamesg%2Fweb-feed-recovery/tags","releases_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/capjamesg%2Fweb-feed-recovery/releases","manifests_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/capjamesg%2Fweb-feed-recovery/manifests","owner_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners/capjamesg","download_url":"https://codeload.github.com/capjamesg/web-feed-recovery/tar.gz/refs/heads/main","host":{"name":"GitHub","url":"https://github.com","kind":"github","repositories_count":243030780,"owners_count":20224665,"icon_url":"https://github.com/github.png","version":null,"created_at":"2022-05-30T11:31:42.601Z","updated_at":"2022-07-04T15:15:14.044Z","host_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub","repositories_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories","repository_names_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repository_names","owners_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners"}},"keywords":["atom","feed-reader-testing","feed-reading","rss"],"created_at":"2025-03-11T11:55:16.705Z","updated_at":"2026-04-21T12:01:59.626Z","avatar_url":"https://github.com/capjamesg.png","language":"Python","funding_links":[],"categories":[],"sub_categories":[],"readme":"# Web Feed Recovery\n\nThis repository contains a script that aims to find a new version of a web feed for a feed that currently returns a 404.\n\nThis repository takes a list of feed URLs that are known to be 404s and attempts to find new feeds.\n\nOn a test of 160 broken feeds from the real world, this project recovered 67%.\n\n## Installation\n\nFirst, clone this project:\n\n```\ngit clone https://github.com/capjamesg/web-feed-recovery\n```\n\nThen, create a file called `feeds.txt` and add feeds that are known to be broken. Add one feed URL per line.\n\nThen, run:\n\n```\napp.py\n```\n\nResults will be saved to a file called `results.json` with the structure:\n\n```json\n[\n  {\n    \"original_feed\": \"https://blog.autumnrain.cc\",\n    \"found_feeds\": {\n        \"https://blog.autumnrain.cc/rss/\": \"application/rss+xml\"\n    }\n  }\n]\n```\n\nThe key-value pairs are the found feed URL mapped to the found MIME type.\n\nMIME types are only added if a feed was found through HTTP header discovery. If the feed was not found through HTTP header discovery, the MIME type will be null.\n\n## Algorithm\n\n1. Go to the homepage of the site associated with the feed.\n2. Check the HTTP headers and HTML `\u003clink\u003e` tags for signals of a feed (using the [indieweb-utils feed discovery implementation](https://indieweb-utils.readthedocs.io/en/latest/discovery.html#indieweb_utils.discover_web_page_feeds)).\n3. Check for instances of several link anchors indicative of a feed (i.e. \"RSS\", \"RSS Feed\"). Save those as potential new feeds.\n4. Check for instances of link anchors for several blog-related terms, like \"Blog\" and \"Writing\". Go to those pages, perform HTTP header and HTML `\u003clink\u003e` tag analysis, and save any feeds.\n5. Present all discovered feeds.\n\n### Limitations\n\nFor a multi-user site on the same domain, the algorithm will not work. This is because a feed on the URL cannot be confidently, generally reconciled with a single writer with the algorithm above. More additions would be needed to support such behaviour.\n\n## UX\n\nThe feeds returned are \"potential\" feeds, since any feed that the user did not add to a feed reader themselves (or that a feed reader did not infer from a URL provided by a user) cannot be known to be the right replacement without confirmation from a user. Thus, use of this script in any project should be accompanied by a stage where a user is asked to confirm that the new feed matches their expectations before replacing the broken feed with the newly-found one.\n\n## License\n\nThis project is licensed under an [MIT license](LICENSE).\n","project_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fcapjamesg%2Fweb-feed-recovery","html_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/projects/github.com%2Fcapjamesg%2Fweb-feed-recovery","lists_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fcapjamesg%2Fweb-feed-recovery/lists"}