rxs is a local-first, keyboard-driven RSS, Atom, and JSON Feed reader for the terminal. It stores downloaded articles in SQLite, starts without an account, and remains useful offline. On launch it shows the saved library immediately, refreshes subscriptions automatically, and can optionally retrieve readable full text when a feed contains only a summary.

Navigate from the initial feed list through filtering, article selection, and the focused reader:

Browse feeds, articles, and a reading preview side by side:

Open an article in the focused reader:

Go 1.26 or newer is required when building from source.

go install github.com/polera/rxs/cmd/rxs@latest
rxs

Precompiled binaries for Linux, macOS, Windows, and FreeBSD on amd64 and arm64 are also available from GitHub Releases. Download the archive for your platform, extract rxs (rxs.exe on Windows), and place it somewhere on your PATH. Each release includes checksums.txt for verifying the download.

rxs checks GitHub Releases once a day when starting the interactive UI. If a newer release is available, choose to install it or defer the prompt for 24 hours. To check and upgrade immediately, run:

rxs upgrade

Upgrades download the release archive for the current operating system and architecture, verify it against the published SHA-256 checksum, and replace the current executable.

For local development:

go build -o rxs ./cmd/rxs
./rxs

Feeds can also be added without opening the terminal interface. The command fetches the feed immediately and stores its articles for offline reading:

rxs add https://example.com/feed.xml

The database lives in the platform user-data directory by default ($XDG_DATA_HOME/rxs/rxs.db or ~/.local/share/rxs/rxs.db on Linux and FreeBSD). Pass -db PATH to use a different database. No configuration file is required.

Press a, type or paste an HTTP or HTTPS feed URL with your terminal's paste shortcut, and press Enter. The feed is fetched immediately. Downloaded article text is searchable and available after the network goes away.

Each time the interactive UI starts, rxs loads saved subscriptions and articles first, then refreshes every feed automatically. The refresh runs concurrently and reports new articles, full-text expansions, and per-feed failures in the status line without interrupting navigation. Use r or R for an additional refresh at any time.

The layout adapts to the terminal: browsing shows all three panes when wide, feeds and articles at medium widths, and one pane on narrow terminals. Opening the reader collapses the feed and article panes at every width so the article uses the full terminal. An unread article is marked read when you reach its bottom and then press h, Left, or Shift-Tab (when no link is selected) to return to the article list.

rxs saves each article's reading position when you leave the reader or confirm that you want to quit. Opening that article again resumes at the saved position, even after restarting rxs or using a different terminal size.

Read articles are hidden from the article listing by default. Press u to show them for the current session. To show read articles initially instead, add this to config.json:

{
  "reading": {
    "hide_read": false
  }
}

Article previews remain unread while you move through the article list by default. To mark each preview read when you scroll away from it, add this to config.json:

{
  "reading": {
    "mark_read_on_scroll": true
  }
}

The setting applies to j / k, arrow keys, gg, and G. A jump marks only the preview you leave, and movement clamped at a list boundary does not mark anything.

Full-article enrichment is off by default. To expand feed items that appear to contain only a summary or truncation, enable automatic downloads in config.json:

{
  "content": {
    "full_articles": "auto"
  }
}

This setting applies to both the interactive reader and rxs add. In auto mode, rxs makes an additional request to an article's linked page only when the feed copy looks partial, then stores readable full text as a separate overlay for offline reading and search. The reader marks enriched entries as full text. Complete feed entries do not cause an article request, and failed downloads leave the feed-provided content intact. Attempts are retried only after the item's URL, feed content, or update time changes.

Enrichment processes static HTML only. It does not run JavaScript, retain cookies, send URL credentials, or bypass authentication and paywalls. Private, loopback, link-local, and cloud-metadata network destinations are rejected, including redirect targets. Use "full_articles": "off" (the default) to disable the additional requests. Per-feed overrides and a manual retry command are possible follow-ups but are not currently available.

Links and original articles open in the system browser by default. To use an interactive terminal browser, create config.json in the platform configuration directory ($XDG_CONFIG_HOME/rxs/config.json or ~/.config/rxs/config.json on Linux and FreeBSD):

{
  "browser": {
    "mode": "tui",
    "command": "w3m",
    "args": ["{url}"]
  }
}

command is executed directly, without a shell. The article URL replaces {url} in an argument; if no argument contains {url}, it is appended. Use -config PATH for a different local configuration file. Set "mode" to "system" (or remove the file) to use the operating system browser.

The terminal interface includes default, catppuccin-latte, catppuccin-mocha, dracula, gruvbox-dark, gruvbox-light, high-contrast, nord, solarized-dark, solarized-light, and tokyo-night. Select one in the same config.json:

{
  "appearance": {
    "color_scheme": "nord"
  }
}

Names are case-insensitive and surrounding whitespace is ignored. Missing appearance configuration uses default, which preserves the original terminal colors. Press c in the interface and use j / k (or the arrow keys) to preview the built-in schemes live. Enter applies the choice and writes it to the active configuration file; Esc restores the previous scheme. The foreground and background are both set for named schemes so light schemes remain readable. catppuccin-latte, gruvbox-light, and solarized-light suit light terminals; high-contrast is a black-and-white scheme whose colors clear WCAG AA. Use -config PATH to load and persist the setting in another file.

Refreshes use conditional HTTP requests when servers provide ETag or Last-Modified, enforce time and size limits, follow at most five redirects, and record per-feed errors without interrupting navigation. A bounded worker pool fetches feeds concurrently; SQLite writes are serialized and transactional. Full-article enrichment handles at most ten entries per feed refresh and also backfills eligible stored entries after a 304 Not Modified response.

go test ./...
go test -race ./...
go vet ./...

Fixtures for RSS, Atom, and JSON Feed live in testdata/feeds. Database migrations are embedded from internal/store/migrations.

Release workflows build Linux, macOS, Windows, and FreeBSD binaries for amd64 and arm64, with CGO disabled.

rxs is released under the MIT license.

Every declared dependency version has been reviewed as permissively licensed and compatible with distributing rxs under MIT. The version-pinned review is recorded in licenses/approved-modules.txt. Running make license-check fails when go.mod and that policy differ.

Release archives ship a THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.txt listing each linked module, its reviewed SPDX license expression, and its complete module-level license and notice files. To regenerate it locally:

make licenses

The set of linked modules differs by platform, so the file is generated per build target from the compiled binary rather than checked in.