Feed RSS

Kiln automatically generates an RSS 2.0 feed every time you build your site. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) lets readers subscribe to your content using feed readers like Feedly, NetNewsWire, or Thunderbird — so they get notified whenever you publish something new, without having to check your site manually.

Why it matters

An RSS feed turns your static site into a living stream of updates. Readers who prefer feed aggregators can follow your content alongside dozens of other sources in a single app. For blogs, digital gardens, and documentation sites alike, offering an RSS feed is a low-effort way to keep your audience engaged and coming back.

Configuration

Because an RSS feed requires absolute URLs (e.g., https://example.com/my-note instead of just /my-note), Kiln needs to know your domain name to generate it.

You must provide the --url flag when running the generate command:

./kiln generate --url "https://your-domain.com"

You can also set the URL permanently in your Configuration File so you don't have to pass the flag every time.

How it works

During the build, Kiln automatically collects metadata from every .md file in your vault and assembles them into a single feed. No opt-in or configuration beyond the --url flag is needed.

• All .md files are included automatically
• Title is taken from the frontmatter title field; falls back to the filename if omitted
• Description is taken from the frontmatter description field (optional)
• Publication date is derived from the file's creation time (birth time)
• Entries are sorted newest first, limited to the 50 most recent
• Output file is feed.xml in the root of the output directory

The feed follows the RSS 2.0 specification. The channel title and link are set to your site's base URL.

Customizing entries

The best way to control how your pages appear in the feed is through frontmatter fields. Each note's frontmatter directly maps to the corresponding RSS item:

---
title: "My Latest Post"
description: "A short summary that appears in feed readers."
---

Adding a descriptive title and description to your notes ensures they look good in every feed reader. See Sitemap xml and Structured Data (SEO) for other features that benefit from the same frontmatter fields.

Limitations

• Maximum 50 entries — the feed includes only the 50 most recent files (hard-coded)
• All .md files included — there is no way to exclude specific files from the feed
• No full-text content — the feed contains titles and descriptions only, not the full body of each note
• Publication date uses file creation time — you cannot override it via frontmatter
• Channel title uses the base URL — there is no option to set a custom site name for the feed title