# RSS Feed Contract Monitor (`nexgenwatch/rss-feed-contract-monitor`) Actor

Checks a feed's health and contract: RSS/Atom/RDF shape validation, item canonicalization, a freshness score, duplicate GUID/link detection, ETag/Last-Modified exposure, and a feed-level health verdict with item samples. Blocked or unreachable feeds bill nothing.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/nexgenwatch/rss-feed-contract-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [NexGen Watch](https://apify.com/nexgenwatch) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, News
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $33.50 / 1,000 feed health checks

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## RSS Feed Contract Monitor

Checks the health and contract of a feed: RSS/Atom/RDF shape validation, item canonicalization, a freshness score, duplicate GUID/link detection, ETag/Last-Modified exposure, and a feed-level health verdict with item samples.

### What you submit

`feeds` — feed urls. Feed URLs (RSS / Atom / RDF). Per feed: shape validation, item canonicalization, a freshness score, duplicate GUID/link detection, ETag / Last-Modified exposure, and a feed-level health verdict with item samples. A completed health verdict bills; a feed blocked (robots/SSRF/403/429/5xx) or unreachable is an unbilled status. Fails loud on contract loss (not valid RSS/Atom/RDF).

### The runtime source gate (per submitted target)

You choose the targets, so the source contract is enforced at run time, per origin, before any page is read:

- **robots.txt** fetched once per origin and honored; no robots / 404 = permitted, a disallowed path or unavailable robots file = **BLOCKED**.
- **SSRF guard** — every host is resolved and must be public; private, loopback, link-local, reserved and cloud-metadata addresses are refused before a socket opens.
- **HTTP** — `403` / `429` / `5xx` = **BLOCKED**; DNS / timeout / connection faults = **UNREACHABLE**.

A **BLOCKED** or **UNREACHABLE** target is delivered as an unbilled status row — never a broken-site verdict, and never charged.

### Output & billing

One row per target. A complete evidenced verdict carries `outcome: answer` and is the only billable outcome; blocked / unreachable / unparseable / rejected targets carry that status and are not billed (push-then-charge — failures can only undercharge).

### Pricing

| Event | Price (USD) | When it fires |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `apify-actor-start` | $0.02 | once when the run starts (reserved; never charged in code) |
| `feed_health_check` | $0.05 | once per **complete evidenced verdict** delivered (blocked / unreachable / unparseable / rejected never bill) |

Volume tiers reduce the per-verdict price as usage grows: $0.05 → $0.045 → $0.04 → $0.0335.

### Why this and not the obvious alternative

feed HEALTH and contract verdicts (shape, freshness, duplicate keys, caching headers) — not a record dump, and unlike our press/event watchers it JUDGES the feed rather than consuming its items.

# Actor input Schema

## `feeds` (type: `array`):

Feed URLs (RSS / Atom / RDF). Per feed: shape validation, item canonicalization, a freshness score, duplicate GUID/link detection, ETag / Last-Modified exposure, and a feed-level health verdict with item samples. A completed health verdict bills; a feed blocked (robots/SSRF/403/429/5xx) or unreachable is an unbilled status. Fails loud on contract loss (not valid RSS/Atom/RDF).

## `userAgent` (type: `string`):

Override the transparent crawler UA.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "feeds": [
    "https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/feed/",
    "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml",
    "http://169.254.169.254/"
  ],
  "userAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; NexGenWatchBot/1.0; +https://apify.com/nexgenwatch)"
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "feeds": [
        "https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/feed/",
        "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml",
        "http://169.254.169.254/"
    ],
    "userAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; NexGenWatchBot/1.0; +https://apify.com/nexgenwatch)"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("nexgenwatch/rss-feed-contract-monitor").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "feeds": [
        "https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/feed/",
        "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml",
        "http://169.254.169.254/",
    ],
    "userAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; NexGenWatchBot/1.0; +https://apify.com/nexgenwatch)",
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("nexgenwatch/rss-feed-contract-monitor").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "feeds": [
    "https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/feed/",
    "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml",
    "http://169.254.169.254/"
  ],
  "userAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; NexGenWatchBot/1.0; +https://apify.com/nexgenwatch)"
}' |
apify call nexgenwatch/rss-feed-contract-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,nexgenwatch/rss-feed-contract-monitor"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/mQjT7XfffbFogss6F/builds/fXD5BOod8pqz7JFeZ/openapi.json