Block: RSS Block — Zelaxy Docs

Fetch an RSS or Atom feed by URL and parse it into a list of items (title, link, date, description), or read channel-level feed info. No authentication required — reach for this block whenever a workflow needs to monitor news sources, blogs, podcasts, or any standard syndication feed.

Overview

Property	Value
Type	`rss`
Category	`tools`
Color	`#F26522`

When to Use

Pull the latest articles from a news site or blog into a downstream summarization or notification workflow.
Monitor a podcast feed and trigger processing when new episodes appear.
Read channel-level metadata (title, homepage link, description) before deciding whether to subscribe or ingest a feed.
Limit the number of items returned to keep downstream processing manageable (e.g. only the 5 most recent posts).
Chain into an Agent block to summarize or classify feed items automatically.
Use in a scheduled workflow to periodically poll a feed and detect new content.

Configuration

Operation

Selects which RSS action to perform. This dropdown is always visible and controls which other fields appear.

Label	ID
Fetch feed	`rss_fetch_feed`
Get feed info	`rss_get_feed_info`

Default: rss_fetch_feed

Feed URL

Sub-block id: url
Type: short-input
Required: yes
Placeholder: https://example.com/feed.xml
Visible for: both rss_fetch_feed and rss_get_feed_info

The full URL of the RSS 2.0 or Atom feed to retrieve. Both http and https URLs are supported. Accepts {{block.output}} references and {{ENV_VAR}} substitutions.

Limit

Sub-block id: limit
Type: short-input
Required: no
Placeholder: 10
Visible for: rss_fetch_feed only

Maximum number of feed items to return. When omitted, all items found in the feed are returned. Must be a positive integer. Has no effect when the operation is rss_get_feed_info.

Inputs & Outputs

Inputs:

operation (string) — Operation to perform (rss_fetch_feed or rss_get_feed_info)
url (string) — RSS or Atom feed URL
limit (number) — Maximum number of items to return

Outputs:

data (json) — Parsed feed items (array) when using rss_fetch_feed; channel title, link, and description object when using rss_get_feed_info
metadata (json) — Response metadata: { count, title } for rss_fetch_feed; { itemCount } for rss_get_feed_info

Output shapes by operation

rss_fetch_feed — data is an array of objects, each with:

Field	Type	Description
`title`	string	Item title
`link`	string	Item URL
`pubDate`	string	Publication date (raw string from feed)
`description`	string	Item summary or description

rss_fetch_feed — metadata:

Field	Type	Description
`count`	number	Number of items returned
`title`	string	Feed (channel) title

rss_get_feed_info — data:

Field	Type	Description
`title`	string	Channel title
`link`	string	Channel homepage URL
`description`	string	Channel description or subtitle

rss_get_feed_info — metadata:

Field	Type	Description
`itemCount`	number	Total number of items in the feed

Tools

RSS Fetch Feed (rss_fetch_feed) — Fetches an RSS or Atom feed via HTTP GET and parses all <item> (RSS) and <entry> (Atom) elements into a structured array of items. Handles CDATA sections and XML entity escaping. Accepts an optional limit to cap the number of items returned.

RSS Get Feed Info (rss_get_feed_info) — Fetches an RSS or Atom feed via HTTP GET and extracts only the channel-level metadata: title, homepage link, and description/subtitle. Also reports the total item count in metadata.itemCount. No limit parameter.

Neither tool requires authentication credentials.

YAML Example

rss_1:
  type: rss
  name: "Fetch Latest Articles"
  inputs:
    operation: "rss_fetch_feed"
    url: "https://feeds.example.com/blog.xml"
    limit: 5
  connections:
    outgoing:
      - target: summarize_block

To reference the fetched items in a downstream block, use {{rss_1.data}}. To access metadata such as the feed title, use {{rss_1.metadata.title}}.

RSS Block