# RSS & Atom Feed Monitor – New Items Only (`sablaturatools/rss-atom-change-monitor`) Actor

Monitor up to 10 RSS and Atom feeds. Return only new or updated items after the first run, filter by keywords or age, and export structured JSON. Persistent history suppresses repeat results. No proxy, browser, or AI API key required.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/sablaturatools/rss-atom-change-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [David Sablatura](https://apify.com/sablaturatools) (community)
- **Categories:**
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.02 / 1,000 new or updated items

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

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 and Atom Change Monitor

Get new or updated headlines from public feeds without sending the same items through your workflow again.

- Combine up to 10 HTTPS RSS 2.0 or Atom 1.0 feeds.
- Filter headline/source keywords and optional age; export structured metadata.
- Remember previous runs and report `new`, `updated`, or optionally `unchanged` items.

Useful for monitoring publication feeds and feeding a research queue, dashboard, or automation. This tool does not write articles, make decisions, send messages, or find customers. No LLM key, browser, or third-party Python package is required.

### Quick input

```json
{
  "feedUrls": ["https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/technology/rss.xml"],
  "newOnly": true,
  "maxItems": 200,
  "monitorName": "technology-news"
}
```

First run returns existing matching items. Later sequential runs return new or changed metadata. `baselineOnly: true` suppresses the first run's items while seeding history. Change `monitorName` to start fresh. Use the same input configuration to continue a monitor. Changing feed URLs, keywords or age filter creates a separate history.

An output row contains `id`, `title`, `url`, `publishedAt`, `source`, `feedUrl`, `change`, and `observedAt`. See `sample-output.json` for three real rows from the verification run. Feed content and links belong to their publishers; no full articles are copied.

### Local tryout

Requires Python 3.12 or newer. On Windows double-click `TRY_LOCAL.cmd`. Or run:

```text
python feed_monitor.py --input INPUT.json
```

Results: `local-output/items.json`; diagnostics: `local-output/summary.json`; history: `local-output/state.json`. Delete the local state file to reset. This runs on demand and does not schedule anything or earn money locally.

### Behavior and limits

HTTPS feeds only, port 443, UTF-8 encoding, no login/cookies. Up to 2 MB per feed and 500 returned items per run. No archive scraping: results are limited to the entries the feed actually exposes. This does not promise every story from a publisher.

Matching uses case-insensitive substrings in headline/source, not semantic AI classification. Deduplication uses article links with common tracking parameters removed; entries without links use feed-scoped IDs. Different URLs for the same underlying story may remain separate. Updates mean changes in the supplied headline/link/date/source, not changes to the full article body.

Unknown dates are null. Age filtering skips and counts them. Missing entries are not marked deleted: RSS feeds are rolling windows. Partial failures are recorded in `SUMMARY` on Apify. If all feeds fail, the run fails and history is not overwritten. A successful no-change run returns an empty dataset.

History retains at most 5,000 identities per monitor, so very old evicted items can appear again. State is committed after output; an interrupted run can repeat results. Delivery is not exactly-once. Use `id` downstream for idempotency. Do not overlap runs of the same monitor: cloud storage has no compare-and-swap lock in this pilot.

For ordinary cloud networking, connections resolve and validate public addresses before connecting. If an environment requires an HTTPS proxy, the shipped proxy route accepts only `feeds.bbci.co.uk`, including redirects. Other feeds require direct public DNS/network access. This restriction cannot be changed through user input.

### Apify package status

`apify_main.py` reads platform input, writes the default dataset and `SUMMARY`, and stores history in an actor-created named key-value store. It uses the invoking account's token from the environment, never a publisher's hardcoded token. Keep Limited permissions. Creating a named store under those permissions is documented to retain access on subsequent runs by the same user: [Apify storage permissions](https://docs.apify.com/actors/development/permissions/migration-guide).

Live cloud tests verified RSS and Atom parsing, persistent history, duplicate suppression across sequential runs, partial-feed failure handling, and output limits. Billing and payouts have not been fully verified.

### Pricing

$0.001 per Actor start plus $0.00002 per returned item ($0.02 per 1,000 items). A no-result run costs $0.001; a 100-item run costs $0.003. Run platform usage is included. Post-run storage and access may incur standard Apify charges. See the Actor's Pricing tab for current rates.

### Tests

```text
python -m unittest discover -s tests -v
```

21 checks plus two live sequential feed runs are documented in `../VERIFICATION.md`.

# Actor input Schema

## `feedUrls` (type: `array`):

1-10 public RSS 2.0 or Atom 1.0 feed URLs. UTF-8 only.

## `includeKeywords` (type: `array`):

Case-insensitive substring match in headline or source. Empty allows all.

## `excludeKeywords` (type: `array`):

Exclude matching headline or source.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

1-500. Overflow remains eligible next run.

## `maxAgeDays` (type: `integer`):

0 disables. When enabled, unknown dates are skipped and counted.

## `newOnly` (type: `boolean`):

Use stored fingerprints to suppress unchanged metadata.

## `baselineOnly` (type: `boolean`):

Seed a fresh monitor without returning its existing headlines. Later runs return changes normally.

## `monitorName` (type: `string`):

Use a different name to reset. Do not overlap runs of the same monitor.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "feedUrls": [
    "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/technology/rss.xml"
  ],
  "includeKeywords": [],
  "excludeKeywords": [],
  "maxItems": 200,
  "maxAgeDays": 0,
  "newOnly": true,
  "baselineOnly": false,
  "monitorName": "default"
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `items` (type: `string`):

Default dataset rows for this run: new, updated, or (only when newOnly is false) unchanged feed items.

## `summary` (type: `string`):

Per-feed success/failure counts, truncation and unknown-date-skip diagnostics for this run, stored as the SUMMARY record in the default key-value store.

# 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 = {
    "feedUrls": [
        "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/technology/rss.xml"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("sablaturatools/rss-atom-change-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 = { "feedUrls": ["https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/technology/rss.xml"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("sablaturatools/rss-atom-change-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 '{
  "feedUrls": [
    "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/technology/rss.xml"
  ]
}' |
apify call sablaturatools/rss-atom-change-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,sablaturatools/rss-atom-change-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/oGvekaYNY7fpDCYVA/builds/a4SYfTZLs7MBL7LJU/openapi.json