generateFeedTask

Summary

Generates RSS, Atom, and JSON feeds from your site's content (typically blog posts or articles). Use this to provide feed subscriptions for readers and syndication services.

Default Behavior

With minimal config, collects all items (e.g., posts) from the specified input, uses site metadata to populate feed details, and writes feed.xml (RSS), atom.xml (Atom), and feed.json (JSON Feed) to your output directory.

Configuration Options

articles (object[] | required): Array of article objects (e.g., blog posts), each with at least title, link, body, and dateObj fields.
outDir (string, required): Path to the output directory (e.g., public).
site (object, required): Metadata for the feed (see below).

Site metadata fields:

title (string): Feed/site title.
description (string): Feed/site description.
id (string): Unique identifier for the feed/site (often same as link).
link (string): Absolute URL to your site root.
language (string): e.g., en.
favicon (string): URL to the site's favicon.
copyright (string): Copyright string.
feedLinks (object): { json, atom } URLs for feed autodiscovery.
author (object): { name, email, link }.

Example config:

generateFeedTask({
  articles: posts, // Array of article objects
  outDir: 'public',
  site: {
    title: 'My Blog',
    description: 'Latest updates and stories',
    id: 'https://example.com/',
    link: 'https://example.com/',
    language: 'en',
    favicon: 'https://example.com/favicon.ico',
    copyright: 'Copyright 2025 Jane Doe',
    feedLinks: {
      json: 'https://example.com/feed.json',
      atom: 'https://example.com/atom.xml',
    },
    author: {
      name: 'Jane Doe',
      email: 'jane@example.com',
      link: 'https://example.com/about',
    },
  },
})

Input Expectations

An array of item objects, each with:
- title (string)
- url (string, absolute or site-relative)
- date (string or Date)
- description or content (string, optional but recommended)
- author, image, etc. (optional, see JSON Feed spec)
Site metadata object as above.

Output

RSS feed (XML) at outDir/rssFile (default: feed.xml)
Atom feed (XML) at outDir/atomFile (default: atom.xml)
JSON Feed at outDir/jsonFile (default: feed.json)

Example:

public/
  feed.xml
  atom.xml
  feed.json

Practical Example

const { generateFeedTask } = require('skier/builtins');

module.exports = [
  // ...other tasks
  generateFeedTask({
    articles: posts, // posts array from generateItemsTask or similar
    outDir: 'public',
    site: {
      title: 'My Blog',
      description: 'Latest updates and stories',
      link: 'https://example.com',
      author: { name: 'Jane Doe' },
    },
  }),
];

Common Pitfalls & Tips

All items should have unique URLs and valid dates.
Dates must be in ISO 8601 format or JS Date objects.
For maximum compatibility, provide both description and content fields in items.
Site link must be the absolute root URL (including https://).
If you only want one feed type, omit the filename for others or delete after build.
Validate your feeds with online validators (e.g., W3C Feed Validator).