Vault Feed Reader

Vault Feed Reader

繁體中文

A desktop RSS and Atom reader for Obsidian, built for high-volume browsing, curation, and selective saving into your vault as Markdown.

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1. Project Purpose

Vault Feed Reader brings an efficient, modern feed reading experience directly into Obsidian without relying on third-party cloud aggregators (no Feedly account required).

It adheres to a Vault-as-Source-of-Truth architecture:

• Subscriptions, reading state, user lists (Favorites & Read Later), and saved notes live inside your vault as standard files (.yaml, .json, .md), making your feeds and curation 100% portable across computers and sync systems.
• Article content is cached locally in an IndexedDB database for fast viewing and offline reading, designed to be disposable without cluttering vault sync.

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2. Use Cases

• Daily Feed Triage: Monitor dozens or hundreds of feeds efficiently with keyboard navigation (j / k), view today's updates, or filter by unread articles.
• Read Later & Favorites: Triage articles on the fly. Add items to Read Later for deferred reading, or star them as Favorites for quick reference without creating notes immediately.
• Selective Markdown Notes: Save noteworthy articles into Markdown notes with customizable frontmatter and body templates. Re-saving opens the existing note without overwriting manual notes.
• AI-Powered Note Enrichment: Use Obsidian command palette actions on saved notes to extract full article text and generate structured AI summaries with topic tags using local CLI agents (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, pi).

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3. Key Features

• Streamlined Reader Interface:
  • Left Sidebar Navigation: Fast access to Today, Saved, Favorite, and Read Later, plus a collapsible source tree organized by single-level folders with unread badges.
  • List Header Navigation: Dual-group filter toolbar separated by a divider: All articles / Unread / Read | Today / Saved / Favorite / Read Later
  • Magazine Layout: Rich thumbnail and summary snippet cards for individual feed views; clean, dense list layout for folders and global views.
  • Compact Article Toolbar: Icon-only controls with tooltips:
    1. Open original link (external-link)
    2. Copy original URL (link)
    3. Copy Markdown link (file-text)
    4. Save / Open note (bookmark / bookmark-check when saved)
    5. Add / Remove Favorite (star)
    6. Add / Remove Read Later (clock, manual removal only)
    7. Toggle read / unread (check-check)
  • Full Keyboard Navigation:

    Shortcut	Action
    j / k	Next / previous article (syncs reading pane)
    Enter	Open selected article
    o	Open original article in external browser
    m	Toggle read / unread
    s	Save note or reveal existing note
    Esc	Return to article list

• Vault-Centric Storage:
  • Subscriptions saved in YAML (feeds.yaml), with full OPML / YAML / TOML import & export.
  • Reading state and user lists stored in JSON within ${rootFolder}/state/.
  • Articles cached locally up to 500 items per feed; cache eviction never alters reading state or saved notes.
• Note Templates & Preserved Edits:
  • Customize filename, YAML properties, and Markdown body with variables ({{title}}, {{feed}}, {{link}}, {{date}}, {{content}}).
  • Edits made to saved Markdown notes are strictly preserved upon future saves.
• Local AI Full-Text & Summaries:
  • Command palette actions for Markdown notes: Fetch full text, Generate AI summary & tags, or both.
  • Integrates with local AI CLI tools via stdio with custom prompts.
• Multilingual Support:
  • English and Traditional Chinese (zh-TW) with automatic Obsidian language detection.

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4. Configuration & Settings

Access settings via Settings → Vault Feed Reader:

General Settings

• Feed Reader root folder: Vault-relative root folder (default: Feed Reader). Changing to an empty folder prompts you to move existing files or create a new source.
• Subscriptions YAML: Vault-relative YAML path (default: Feed Reader/feeds.yaml).
• Saved articles folder: Vault-relative folder for saved notes (default: Feed Reader/Articles).
• Default list filter: Initial filter when opening lists (unread, all, read, or today).
• Mark read on j/k navigation: Automatically mark articles as read when navigating with j/k (default: disabled).
• Language: Choose Follow Obsidian (default), English, or 繁體中文 (requires reload).

Saved Note Templates

• Filename template: e.g., {{date}} {{title}} (without .md).
• Body template: Markdown content structure incorporating {{content}}.
• Custom Properties: Frontmatter mapping in YAML without ---. Supports tags and metadata.

Article Full Text & AI Summaries

• Original URL fields: Comma-separated frontmatter fields to detect article URLs (default: feed_reader_url, source, url).
• Heading & Body Rules: Target section headings for appending or replacing full text.
• Summary prompt: Custom prompt requesting summary points and topic tags.
• Local Agent: Select preconfigured CLI (codex, claude, opencode, pi) or specify a custom executable and arguments.

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5. Obsidian Community Information

• Platform Compatibility: Desktop Obsidian only (macOS, Windows, Linux). Minimum required Obsidian version: 1.8.7.
• Installation:
  • Community Plugins: Search for Vault Feed Reader in Obsidian Settings → Community Plugins and click Install.
  • Manual Installation: Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest GitHub Release, place them in <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/vault-feed-reader/, and enable the plugin in Settings.
• Network & Privacy:
  • Connects strictly via HTTP(S) to public feed URLs you subscribe to.
  • Images in articles load from remote hosts specified by feeds.
  • No telemetry, analytics, trackers, user accounts, or cloud server intermediaries.
  • AI summaries execute entirely through your local CLI installations.
• License: MIT License.