This was inspired by the sunsetting of pico.sh/feeds being available outside of pico+. It is a totally understandable move from them as their email costs were skyrocketing and they needed to pay for it somehow. This was created to allow me to still get my rss feeds delivered to me each day by email which I have grown quite accustomed to. The config is completely compatible with the pico.sh format as of 2026-01-09 and should stay fairly stable. It is also configured over ssh with the slight addition that you can view your feeds on a website as well as I found myself wanting to hot load my feeds into my website :)

The canonical repo for this is hosted on tangled over at dunkirk.sh/herald

Quick Start#

# Build
go build -ldflags "-X main.commitHash=$(git log -1 --format=%H)" -o herald .

# Run the server
./herald serve

# Or with a config file
./herald serve -c config.yaml

Note: The commit hash is automatically detected at runtime if not embedded at build time.

Usage#

Upload a config#

Create a feeds.txt file:

=: email you@example.com
=: cron 0 8 * * *
=: digest true
=> https://dunkirk.sh/atom.xml
=> https://news.ycombinator.com/rss
=> https://lobste.rs/rss "Lobsters"

Upload via SCP:

scp feeds.txt user@herald.dunkirk.sh:

SSH Configuration#

Add this to your ~/.ssh/config for easier access:

Host herald
    HostName herald.dunkirk.sh
    Port 2223
    User herald

Then use: scp feeds.txt herald: and ssh herald ls

SSH Commands#

# Get your fingerprint (for web dashboard)
ssh herald.dunkirk.sh

# List your configs
ssh herald.dunkirk.sh ls

# Show config contents
ssh herald.dunkirk.sh cat feeds.txt

# Delete a config
ssh herald.dunkirk.sh rm feeds.txt

# Activate/deactivate configs
ssh herald.dunkirk.sh activate feeds.txt
ssh herald.dunkirk.sh deactivate feeds.txt

# Run immediately (don't wait for cron)
ssh herald.dunkirk.sh run feeds.txt

# Show recent activity
ssh herald.dunkirk.sh logs

Web Interface#

Visit http://localhost:8080 for the landing page.

After uploading a config, run ssh herald.dunkirk.sh to get your fingerprint, then visit:

http://localhost:8080/{fingerprint} - Your dashboard with config status
http://localhost:8080/{fingerprint}/feeds.xml - RSS feed for feeds.txt
http://localhost:8080/{fingerprint}/feeds.json - JSON feed for feeds.txt

Config Format#

Directives#

Directive	Required	Description
`=: email <addr>`	Yes	Recipient email address
`=: cron <expr>`	Yes	Standard cron expression (5 fields)
`=: digest <bool>`	No	Combine all items into one email (default: true)
`=: inline <bool>`	No	Include article content in email (default: false)
`=> <url> ["name"]`	Yes (1+)	RSS/Atom feed URL, optional display name

Configuration#

Create a config.yaml:

host: 0.0.0.0
ssh_port: 2222
http_port: 8080

host_key_path: ./host_key
db_path: ./herald.db

smtp:
  host: smtp.example.com
  port: 587
  user: sender@example.com
  pass: ${SMTP_PASS}
  from: herald@example.com

allow_all_keys: true

Environment variables can also be used:

HERALD_HOST
HERALD_SSH_PORT
HERALD_HTTP_PORT
HERALD_DB_PATH
HERALD_SMTP_HOST
HERALD_SMTP_PORT
HERALD_SMTP_USER
HERALD_SMTP_PASS
HERALD_SMTP_FROM

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