RSS as the backbone of agent content distribution

TL;DR

Make RSS the backbone of your content distribution: publish once to your own site, expose a clean full-content feed, and let every channel (newsletter tools, aggregators, cross-posters, readers) consume from it. One feed means one source of truth; every channel stays in sync without manual copying.

RSS as the backbone of agent content distribution

Use this when

• Publishing to multiple channels regularly
• Wiring up automated cross-posting
• You want a machine-readable source of your content

Not for this skill when

• You publish rarely (manual is fine)
• A channel needs platform-native features feeds cannot carry
• Your site cannot serve a stable feed (fix that first)

Steps

1. Publish on your own domain first. The site is the canonical home; the feed mirrors it. Expected: every piece has a canonical URL you control.

1. Expose a clean full-content feed. Full text, not excerpts; correct dates; stable GUIDs that never change. Expected: a feed validators pass and consumers can trust.

feed requirements:
  full content: yes, not excerpts
  GUIDs: stable, never reused
  dates: correct timezone, chronological
  validated: passes a feed validator

1. Point every channel at the feed. Newsletter imports, cross-posters, aggregators, and monitoring all read the same feed. Expected: a new post propagates without manual steps.

1. Keep the feed fast and cached. Consumers poll; a slow feed means delayed distribution. Expected: sub-second feed responses.

1. Monitor the feed like infrastructure. Alert if it breaks, goes stale, or serves errors; a dead feed silently stops all distribution. Expected: you know within minutes if it fails.

Variant phrasings

feed-driven content publishing

One canonical feed consumed by every channel; publish once, distribute everywhere.

using RSS for multi-channel distribution

Your site publishes, the feed mirrors, channels consume. Single source of truth.

RSS as a publishing API

Stable GUIDs, full content, correct dates: the contract your channels rely on.

Why it happens

Every channel needs to know when you publish and what you published. Without a feed, that is N manual notifications; with one, it is zero. RSS is the oldest, most supported publish-subscribe protocol on the web, and everything already speaks it.

Edge cases / pitfalls

• Changing GUIDs makes consumers treat old posts as new; never reuse or change them.
• Excerpt feeds break cross-posters that need full text; serve full content.
• Feed caching headers matter; set them so consumers do not hammer your server.
• Validate after every CMS or template change; feeds break silently.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_AXzVcXHeOkuXdK899eKiJA