Automated tech news digest — 163 built-in sources, 7-source pipeline, one chat message to install.

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Tell your OpenClaw AI assistant:

"Install follow-news and send a daily digest every morning at 9am"

That's it. Your bot handles installation, configuration, scheduling, and delivery — all through conversation.

More examples:

🗣️ "Set up a weekly AI digest, only llm and ai-agent topics, deliver to Discord #ai-weekly every Monday"

🗣️ "Install follow-news, add my RSS feeds, and include the kol topic"

🗣️ "Give me a tech digest right now, skip Twitter sources"

Or install via CLI:

clawhub install follow-news

A deduplicated tech digest built from 163 built-in sources plus 6 default report topics:

       run-pipeline.py (~30s)
              ↓
  RSS ────────┐
  Twitter ────┤
  Web ────────┤── parallel fetch ──→ merge-sources.py
  GitHub ─────┤                          ↓
  GitHub Tr. ─┤              enrich-articles.py (opt-in)
  Reddit ─────┤                          ↓
  Podcast ────┘
              Ranking Signals → Dedup → Topic Grouping
                             ↓
               Discord / Email / PDF output

Ranking signals: priority sources, multi-source cross-reference, recency, engagement, Reddit discussion activity, and already-reported penalties.

• config/defaults/sources.json — 163 built-in sources (65 RSS, 61 Twitter, 23 GitHub, 8 Reddit, 6 Podcast)
• config/defaults/topics.json — 6 topics: llm, ai-agent, kol, hackernews, frontier-tech, podcast
• User overrides in workspace/config/ take priority

Works out of the box with 163 built-in sources (65 RSS, 61 Twitter, 23 GitHub, 8 Reddit, 6 Podcast) and supports custom podcast sources — but fully customizable. Copy the defaults to your workspace config and override:

# Copy and customize
cp config/defaults/sources.json workspace/config/follow-news-sources.json
cp config/defaults/topics.json workspace/config/follow-news-topics.json

Your overlay file merges with defaults:

• Override a source by matching its id — your version replaces the default
• Add new sources with a unique id — appended to the list
• Disable a built-in source — set "enabled": false on the matching id

{
  "sources": [
    {"id": "my-blog", "type": "rss", "enabled": true, "url": "https://myblog.com/feed", "topics": ["llm"]},
    {
      "id": "training-data-podcast",
      "type": "podcast",
      "name": "Training Data",
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOhHNjZItNnMm5tdW61JpnyxeYH5NDDx8",
      "platform": "youtube",
      "enabled": true,
      "priority": true,
      "topics": ["podcast"],
      "transcript": {
        "enabled": true,
        "backend": "yt-dlp",
        "languages": ["en", "zh", "zh-Hans"]
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "xiaoyuzhou-example",
      "type": "podcast",
      "name": "Xiaoyuzhou Example",
      "url": "https://www.xiaoyuzhoufm.com/podcast/686a1832222ae2de21fea940",
      "platform": "xiaoyuzhou",
      "enabled": true,
      "topics": ["podcast"],
      "transcript": {
        "enabled": true,
        "backend": "opencli",
        "languages": ["zh"]
      }
    },
    {"id": "openai-rss", "enabled": false}
  ]
}

No need to copy the entire file — just include what you want to change.

Podcast sources use type: "podcast". RSS podcast feeds work without extra tools. YouTube podcast sources use platform: "youtube" and can fetch metadata and transcripts through the optional yt-dlp runtime. Xiaoyuzhou podcast sources use platform: "xiaoyuzhou" with URLs like https://www.xiaoyuzhoufm.com/podcast/<podcast_id>. Xiaoyuzhou metadata discovery uses OpenCLI and has no direct API or HTML fallback; transcript backend auto/opencli uses OpenCLI for Xiaoyuzhou episodes. The opencli transcript backend is only valid for Xiaoyuzhou sources.

All environment variables are optional. The pipeline runs with whatever sources are available.

# Twitter/X Backend (auto priority: opencli > getxapi > twitterapiio > official)
export TWITTER_API_BACKEND="auto"  # auto|opencli|getxapi|twitterapiio|official
export OPENCLI_BIN="/path/to/opencli"  # optional; defaults to opencli on PATH
export OPENCLI_MAX_WORKERS="10"  # optional; increase parallel OpenCLI workers
export OPENCLI_CHECK_CACHE_TTL_SECONDS="86400"  # optional; cache OpenCLI capability/doctor checks for 24h
export OPENCLI_STRICT_CHECK="0"  # optional; set 1 to run OpenCLI prechecks every time
export OPENCLI_AUTO_UPDATE="1"      # auto-update OpenCLI if support exists (default: 1)
export OPENCLI_NO_UPDATE="0"        # set 1 to skip OpenCLI auto-update
export OPENCLI_UPDATE_COMMAND="self-update"  # optional; try this command if auto-update
export OPENCLI_UPDATE_CHECK_INTERVAL_SECONDS="86400"  # optional; defaults to 24h
export OPENCLI_CLOSE_TABS_AFTER_RUN="1"  # optional; close OpenCLI-created X/Twitter tabs after fetch
export OPENCLI_CLOSE_CHROME_WINDOWS_AFTER_RUN="1"  # optional; close Chrome automation windows opened by OpenCLI
export GETX_API_KEY="..."        # GetXAPI fallback
export TWITTERAPI_IO_KEY="..."   # twitterapi.io fallback
export X_BEARER_TOKEN="..."      # Official X API v2 fallback
# Web Search
export TAVILY_API_KEY="tvly-xxx"   # Tavily Search API
export BRAVE_API_KEYS="k1,k2,k3"   # Brave Search API keys (comma-separated for rotation)
export BRAVE_API_KEY="..."         # Single Brave key
export WEB_SEARCH_BACKEND="auto"   # auto|brave|tavily|browser
# GitHub
export GITHUB_TOKEN="..."          # GitHub API
# Podcast transcripts
export YTDLP_BIN="/path/to/yt-dlp"  # optional; defaults to yt-dlp on PATH
# Other
export BRAVE_PLAN="free"           # Override Brave rate limit: free|pro

OpenCLI is preferred because it can reuse an authenticated Chrome/Chromium session instead of requiring Twitter API credentials. API backends remain available for CI, headless machines, or users who already configured API keys.

To use the OpenCLI backend, install the OpenCLI executable yourself and make it available on PATH, or set OPENCLI_BIN to its absolute path. In OpenClaw, also install the jackwener/opencli Skill so the agent can run opencli doctor, check the browser bridge, and guide X login-state troubleshooting.

The fetcher caches successful OpenCLI capability and doctor checks for OPENCLI_CHECK_CACHE_TTL_SECONDS seconds to reduce cold-start overhead; set OPENCLI_STRICT_CHECK=1 when diagnosing browser bridge or login-state issues.

OpenCLI browser bridge stability depends on the local browser extension connection. The fetcher defaults to 10 concurrent OpenCLI workers (OPENCLI_MAX_WORKERS=10) and has a hard cap at 10. It also closes X/Twitter tabs created during the OpenCLI fetch (OPENCLI_CLOSE_TABS_AFTER_RUN=1 by default) and, on macOS, closes Chrome automation windows that OpenCLI opened during the run (OPENCLI_CLOSE_CHROME_WINDOWS_AFTER_RUN=1 by default) while leaving pre-existing windows alone.

RSS podcast feeds do not need extra tools. YouTube podcast metadata and transcript fetching require yt-dlp; install it on PATH, or set YTDLP_BIN to the executable path. If yt-dlp is missing, that YouTube podcast source is marked failed without blocking the rest of the pipeline.

Xiaoyuzhou podcast metadata discovery requires OpenCLI. Install, configure, and authenticate OpenCLI for Xiaoyuzhou before running these sources; set OPENCLI_BIN to override the binary path when opencli is not on PATH. Xiaoyuzhou metadata discovery has no direct API or HTML fallback. For transcripts, backend auto/opencli uses OpenCLI for Xiaoyuzhou episodes, and opencli is rejected for non-Xiaoyuzhou podcast sources.

The skill requires Python 3.8+ and two optional dependencies for enhanced functionality:

pip install -r requirements.txt
# or
pip install feedparser>=6.0.0 jsonschema>=4.0.0

• feedparser — RSS/Atom feed parsing (fallback to regex if not installed)
• jsonschema — JSON Schema validation for config files

pip install weasyprint yt-dlp

• weasyprint — Enables PDF report generation
• yt-dlp — Enables YouTube podcast metadata and transcript fetching; YTDLP_BIN can point to a standalone binary

Run the digest acceptance test before changing digest rendering behavior:

python3 -m unittest tests.test_acceptance_digest -v

When the expected digest intentionally changes, update the golden file and review the diff before committing:

UPDATE_GOLDEN=1 python3 -m unittest tests.test_acceptance_digest -v
git diff -- tests/golden/daily-discord.md

To manually prepare Codex context for the acceptance fixture:

python3 scripts/render-acceptance-digest.py \
  --input tests/fixtures/acceptance-merged.json \
  --topics config/defaults/topics.json \
  --date 2026-02-27 \
  --version 3.17.0 \
  --prepare-codex-context /tmp/follow-news-acceptance \
  --output /tmp/follow-news-acceptance/expected.md

GitHub: github.com/tangwz/follow-news

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MIT License — see LICENSE for details.