Use RSS Sources in Cortex
RSS is usually the easiest source to set up in Cortex. It works best for blogs, release feeds, and status updates when a site already offers a clean RSS or Atom feed.
Add the feed URL and Cortex checks it for new items on a regular schedule.
Because the site already provides a structured list of entries, you do not need page selectors or custom scraping logic.
- News and editorial streams that already publish feeds
- Release, changelog, or product update feeds
- Status or incident streams with official syndication
- Low-maintenance monitoring when a clean feed already exists
RSS should usually be your first option when a site supports it. Compared with Web or API Endpoint sources, it is faster to set up, easier to maintain, and less likely to break over time.
RSS Setup
Start by choosing the feed URL you actually want to monitor. Many sites publish multiple feeds, and the best one is usually the feed that matches the specific stream you care about, not the broadest possible site-wide feed.
If a site does not link the feed clearly, start with the most common feed endpoints:
/feed
/rss
/rss.xml
/feed.xml
/atom.xml
/blog/feedKey Configuration Fields
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| RSS URL |
Use the most official feed you can find. Prefer the feed that best matches the exact stream you want Cortex to monitor, not just the nearest homepage feed.
Example
https://example.com/changelog.xml
|
| Max Items per Extraction |
Use this when a feed is noisy or very high-volume. It helps limit how many items Cortex pulls each time.
Example
25
|
| Content Max Age |
Use this to ignore older items when a feed republishes old posts or mixes recent and historical entries together.
Example
7
|
For the full field reference, see Create Source in the API docs.
Examples
These examples show several common RSS patterns in Cortex.
GitHub Repo Release Feed
Official release feed for one repository. Use this pattern when a project publishes product or infrastructure updates through GitHub releases.
GitHub Discussions Feed
GitHub-hosted discussion stream rather than a release feed. Use this when the important signal lives in community or maintainer discussions.
Atlassian Statuspage Feed
Operational status feed with volume limits to keep the stream focused. Use this for incidents, maintenance notices, and service health updates.
Company Blog Feed
Straightforward publisher-managed blog feed. Use this when one company or project blog is the source of truth for updates.
Substack Blog Feed
Newsletter-style RSS feed from a Substack publication. Use this when long-form updates are published through an email-first platform.
Medium Publication Feed
Medium publication feed. Use this when a project publishes through Medium rather than its own blog or newsletter stack.
Google News Search Feed
Topic-search RSS feed aggregated by Google News. Use this when you want broad news coverage around a topic, company, or phrase rather than updates from a single publisher.
URL format: Use when:7d for the last 7 days. Wrap exact phrases in %22...%22. Change hl/gl/ceid for locale.
Hacker News Search Feed
Standing search-query RSS feed rather than a single publisher feed. Use this when the source definition is a topic query across a larger network.
Query syntax: Use OR between terms. points=N filters by minimum score. count=N limits results per poll.
arXiv Subject Feed
Subject-area research feed instead of a site section feed. Use this when the stream you want is organized by academic category or discipline.
Forum Latest Feed
Community forum stream rather than a publisher-managed blog. Use this when discussion threads themselves are the thing you want to monitor.
Troubleshooting & FAQ
The source is active but nothing useful is appearing.
The feed may be valid, but too broad for what you want to track.
Try a more specific feed or lower the extraction cap so Cortex keeps a cleaner set of items.
The feed keeps surfacing old items.
Use Content Max Age when the feed republishes older entries or shows a long history that is not useful for your use case.
When should I use Web instead?
Use Web when the site does not provide a usable RSS or Atom feed and you need Cortex to read content from a page directly.