Blog post workflow

How to use

• Go to your repository
• Add the following section to your README.md file, you can give whatever title you want. Just make sure that you use <!-- BLOG-POST-LIST:START --><!-- BLOG-POST-LIST:END --> in your readme. The workflow will replace this comment with the actual blog post list:

# Blog posts
<!-- BLOG-POST-LIST:START -->
<!-- BLOG-POST-LIST:END -->

• Create a folder named .github and create a workflows folder inside it if it doesn't exist.
• Create a new file named blog-post-workflow.yml with the following contents inside the workflows folder:

name: Latest blog post workflow
on:
  schedule: # Run workflow automatically
    - cron: '0 * * * *' # Runs every hour, on the hour
  workflow_dispatch: # Run workflow manually (without waiting for the cron to be called), through the Github Actions Workflow page directly
jobs:
  update-readme-with-blog:
    name: Update this repo's README with latest blog posts
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - uses: gautamkrishnar/blog-post-workflow@master
        with:
          feed_list: "https://dev.to/feed/gautamkrishnar,https://www.gautamkrishnar.com/feed/"

• Replace the above url list with your own rss feed urls. See popular-sources for a list of common RSS feed urls.
• Commit and wait for it to run automatically or you can also trigger it manually to see the result instantly. To trigger the workflow manually, please follow the steps in the video.

Options

This workflow has additional options that you can use to customize it for your use case. The following are the list of options available:

Option	Default Value	Description	Required
feed_list	""	Comma-separated list of RSS feed urls, eg: https://example1.com,https://example2.com	Yes
max_post_count	5	Maximum number of posts you want to show on your readme, all feeds combined	No
readme_path	./README.md	Path of the readme file you want to update	No
gh_token	your GitHub token with repo scope	Use this to configure the token of the user that commits the workflow result to GitHub	No
comment_tag_name	BLOG-POST-LIST	Allows you to override the default comment tag name (<!-- BLOG-POST-LIST:START --><!-- BLOG-POST-LIST:END -->), if you want to show multiple instances of the action on the same repo, see advanced usage for more info	No
disable_sort	false	Disables the sorting of the list based on publish date	No
template	default	Allows you to change the structure of the posts list by using different variables. By default this workflow uses markdown list format to render the posts, you can override this behavior using this option. Eg: [$title]($url) will give you a space-separated list of posts. Supported variables $title: Title of the post $url: URL of the post $newline: Inserts a newline $date: Inserts the post date based on the date_format specified $randomEmoji: Allow you to use random emojis in the post, pass emojis as the parameter to chose one of it randomly in each post item. Eg: $randomEmoji(💯,🔥,💫,🚀,🌮). See the issue comment for more details $emojiKey: You can use this argument to show emojis on each of your post item sequentially in the order you specify. Example: $emojiKey(💯,🔥,💫). See the issue comment for more details	No
date_format	UTC:ddd mmm dd yyyy h:MM TT	Allows you to change the format of the date or time displayed when using the $date in the template option. This uses NPM dateformat library, please read the library documentation for the supported formats	No
user_agent	rss-parser	Allows you to customize the user agent used by the RSS feed crawler	No
accept_header	application/rss+xml	Allows you to customize the accept header of the http requests	No
tag_post_pre_newline	true if you are not using template option	Allows you to insert a newline before the closing tag and after the opening tag when using the template option if needed, for better formatting	No
filter_comments	medium,stackoverflow/Comment by $author/,stackexchange/Comment by $author/	Comma separated list of platforms you want to enable the comment filter. Available filters medium: Allows you to filter out the Medium comments stackoverflow/Comment by $author/: Allows you to filter out the StackOverflow comments. Argument to this filter is optional, it defaults to 'Comment by $author'. If you use any language other than English on StackOverflow, you can use this argument to customize it. See #16 for more info. stackexchange/Comment by $author/: Allows you to filter out the StackExchange comments. Argument to this filter follows the same format as stackoverflow filter's argument.	No
custom_tags	""	Allows you to use the custom tags from your feed items in your template. Format: variableName/tagName/,variableName/tagName/. Please see the issue comment for more details	No
title_max_length	""	Allows you to trim the title in the posts list, excess text will be appended with an ellipsis ...	No
item_exec	""	Allows you to execute custom JavaScript code on each post item fetched from the xml to do advanced text manipulation. Please see the issue comment as an example	No
commit_message	Updated with the latest blog posts	Allows you to customize the commit message	No
committer_username	blog-post-bot	Allows you to customize the committer username	No
committer_email	[email protected]	Allows you to customize the committer email	No

Advanced usage examples

StackOverflow example

The following configuration allows you to show your latest StackOverflow activity along with your latest blog posts in the Github profile or project readme:

• Follow the steps mentioned in the how to use section
• Add the following section to your README.md file, you can give whatever title you want. Just make sure that you use <!-- STACKOVERFLOW:START --><!-- STACKOVERFLOW:END --> in your readme. The workflow will replace this comment with the actual StackOverflow activity:

# StackOverflow Activity
<!-- STACKOVERFLOW:START -->
<!-- STACKOVERFLOW:END -->

• Create stack-overflow-workflow.yml in your workflows folder with the following contents, replace 4214976 with your StackOverflow user id:

name: Latest stack overflow activity
on:
  schedule:
    # Runs every 5 minutes
    - cron: '*/5 * * * *'

jobs:
  update-readme-with-stack-overflow:
    name: Update this repo's README with latest activity from StackOverflow
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - uses: gautamkrishnar/blog-post-workflow@master
        with:
          comment_tag_name: "STACKOVERFLOW"
          commit_message: "Updated readme with the latest stackOverflow data"
          feed_list: "https://stackoverflow.com/feeds/user/4214976"

See the result!

Popular Sources

Following are the list of some popular blogging platforms and their RSS feed urls:

Name	Feed URL	Comments	Example
Dev.to	https://dev.to/feed/username	Replace username with your own username	https://dev.to/feed/gautamkrishnar
Wordpress	https://www.example.com/feed/	Replace with your own blog url	https://www.gautamkrishnar.com/feed/
Medium	https://medium.com/feed/@username	Replace @username with your Medium username	https://medium.com/feed/@khaosdoctor
Stackoverflow	https://stackoverflow.com/feeds/user/userid	Replace with your StackOverflow UserId	https://stackoverflow.com/feeds/user/5283532
StackExchange	https://subdomain.stackexchange.com/feeds/user/userid	Replace with your StackExchange UserId and sub-domain	https://devops.stackexchange.com/feeds/user/15
Ghost	https://www.example.com/rss/	Replace with your own blog url	https://blog.codinghorror.com/rss/
Drupal	https://www.example.com/rss.xml	Replace with your own blog url	https://www.arsenal.com/rss.xml
Youtube Playlists	https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=playlistId	Replace playlistId with your own Youtube playlist id	https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=PLJNqgDLpd5E69Kc664st4j7727sbzyx0X
Youtube Channel Video list	https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=channelId	Replace channelId with your own Youtube channel id	https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCDCHcqyeQgJ-jVSd6VJkbCw
Anchor.fm Podcasts	https://anchor.fm/s/podcastId/podcast/rss	You can get the rss feed url of a podcast by following these instructions	https://anchor.fm/s/1e784a38/podcast/rss
Hashnode	https://@username.hashnode.dev/rss.xml	Replace @username with your Hashnode username	https://polilluminato.hashnode.dev/rss.xml
Google Podcasts	https://podcasts.google.com/feed/channelId	Replace channelId with your Google podcast channel Id	https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zb3VuZGNsb3VkLmNvbS91c2Vycy9zb3VuZGNsb3VkOnVzZXJzOjYyOTIxMTkwL3NvdW5kcy5yc3M=
Reddit	http://www.reddit.com/r/topic/.rss	You can create an RSS feed by adding '.rss' to the end of an existing Reddit URL. Replace topic with SubReddit topic that interest you or localized to you.	http://www.reddit.com/r/news/.rss

Examples

• My own GitHub profile readme - YML File
• Lucas Santos' GitHub profile readme - YML File

Demo video

Please see the video by @codeSTACKr.

Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for getting started with the contribution. Make sure that you follow CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md while contributing and engaging in the discussions. When contributing, please first discuss the change you wish to make via an issue on this repository before making the actual change.

ToDo

• Add more sources
• Fix bugs if any

Bugs

If you are experiencing any bugs, don’t forget to open a new issue.

Thanks

• Thanks to all the 1.5K+ users of this workflow
• Thanks to all the contributors
• Thanks to @codeSTACKr for this amazing video

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