# RSS Feed Monitor - New Items Only (`technicaldost/rss-feed-monitor`) Actor

Watch any RSS or Atom feed and get back only the items published since your last run. Remembers what it has already seen, so you never process or pay for the same article twice.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/technicaldost/rss-feed-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [Technical Dost Solutions](https://apify.com/technicaldost) (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 $10.00 / 1,000 new 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/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#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 Monitor — New Items Only

Watch any RSS or Atom feed and get back **only the items published since your last run**.

Most feed scrapers hand you the same 50 articles every time you run them. You then have to store what you have already seen, compare, and throw the duplicates away — and you pay for every duplicate. This Actor does that bookkeeping for you and returns nothing when nothing has changed.

### What it does

- Remembers every item it has already returned, per feed, across runs
- Returns only genuinely new items on each subsequent run
- Returns an empty dataset when a feed has not changed — so a quiet check costs you almost nothing
- Handles RSS 2.0, Atom, and podcast feeds
- No proxies, no API keys, no configuration

### Typical uses

- Trigger a Slack, Discord, or email alert when a blog or news site publishes
- Feed only fresh articles into an LLM summarisation or classification pipeline
- Watch competitor blogs, release notes, or changelogs for updates
- Track a podcast feed and act on each new episode
- Mirror new posts into a database or spreadsheet without writing dedupe logic

### Input

| Field | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| `feedUrls` | array | — | **Required.** RSS or Atom feed URLs to watch. |
| `maxItemsFirstRun` | integer | `10` | Cap on the first run only, so you are not billed for a whole backlog. |
| `maxNewItemsPerFeed` | integer | `200` | Safety cap per feed per run. |
| `includeContent` | boolean | `true` | Include full article body when the feed provides it. |
| `emitFeedMetadata` | boolean | `false` | Add one summary row per feed that had new items. |
| `stateName` | string | `feed-monitor-state` | Named store holding the seen-item history. Use different names to track the same feed in separate workflows. |

```json
{
  "feedUrls": [
    "https://news.ycombinator.com/rss",
    "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml"
  ],
  "maxItemsFirstRun": 10,
  "includeContent": true
}
```

### Output

One record per new item:

```json
{
  "type": "new_item",
  "isFirstRun": false,
  "feedTitle": "Hacker News",
  "feedUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/rss",
  "title": "Show HN: ...",
  "link": "https://example.com/post",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-13T09:14:00.000Z",
  "author": "someone",
  "categories": [],
  "guid": "https://example.com/post",
  "summary": "Short description from the feed",
  "content": "Full body when the feed provides it",
  "detectedAt": "2026-08-13T09:20:11.482Z"
}
```

### How the first run works

On the very first run for a feed there is no history, so every item in the feed looks new. Returning all of them would bill you for the entire backlog. Instead the Actor stores the current contents as a baseline and returns only the most recent `maxItemsFirstRun` items. Every run after that returns all genuinely new items.

Set `maxItemsFirstRun` to `0` if you want a silent baseline and nothing at all on the first run.

### Scheduling

Pair this with an Apify Schedule to poll on an interval — every 15 minutes, hourly, or daily. Because unchanged feeds return nothing, frequent polling stays cheap.

### Pricing

- A small per-run charge covers the check itself.
- Then you pay per **new item** returned. No new items means no item charges.

### Notes

- The seen-item history is capped at 2,000 items per feed, which is far more than any normal feed publishes between runs.
- If a feed omits `guid`, the Actor falls back to the item link, then to title plus publication date.
- Feeds that fail to load produce an `error` record rather than failing the whole run, so one broken feed does not stop the rest.

# Actor input Schema

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

RSS or Atom feed URLs to watch for new items.

## `maxItemsFirstRun` (type: `integer`):

On the very first run there is no history, so the whole backlog would otherwise be returned. This caps that first batch. Later runs return every new item.

## `maxNewItemsPerFeed` (type: `integer`):

Safety cap so an unusually busy feed cannot produce a huge bill in one run.

## `includeContent` (type: `boolean`):

Include the full article body when the feed provides it.

## `emitFeedMetadata` (type: `boolean`):

Add one summary row per feed that had new items. This row is billed like any other result.

## `stateName` (type: `string`):

Named key-value store used to remember which items were already seen. Use different names to track the same feed independently in separate workflows.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "feedUrls": [
    "https://news.ycombinator.com/rss",
    "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml"
  ],
  "maxItemsFirstRun": 10,
  "maxNewItemsPerFeed": 200,
  "includeContent": true,
  "emitFeedMetadata": false,
  "stateName": "feed-monitor-state"
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `overview` (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 = {
    "feedUrls": [
        "https://news.ycombinator.com/rss",
        "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("technicaldost/rss-feed-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://news.ycombinator.com/rss",
        "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml",
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("technicaldost/rss-feed-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://news.ycombinator.com/rss",
    "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml"
  ]
}' |
apify call technicaldost/rss-feed-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,technicaldost/rss-feed-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/wDTrYL128na5ejm18/builds/vbT1N9fN8i67q6Q0c/openapi.json