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Publish an RSS feed

When subscribers should be able to follow the blog from a reader, /rss.xml is wired by UseBlogSite out of the box (BlogSiteOptions.EnableRss defaults to true). The two things that most often break a working feed are missing date: front matter — the post is silently dropped from the channel — and an unset CanonicalBaseUrl — feed links emit relative URLs that aggregators cannot follow. On bare AddPennington without AddBlogSite, see Scaffold a blog with BlogSite first; the feed endpoint ships with the BlogSite template, not with core Pennington.

Assumptions

  • A working BlogSite (see Scaffold a blog with BlogSite if not)
  • Posts under Content/Blog/ that parse as BlogSiteFrontMatter
  • A known production origin (such as https://blog.example.com). CanonicalBaseUrl needs the scheme and no trailing slash

Options

Confirm EnableRss is on

BlogSiteOptions.EnableRss defaults to true. Setting it explicitly in the options builder makes the intent visible and guards against a future default change.

The kitchen-sink example wires EnableRss, CanonicalBaseUrl, and AuthorName together in one place:

new()
    {
        SiteTitle = "Pennington Kitchen Sink Blog",
        Description = "A kitchen-sink BlogSite example that backs two how-to pages and two reference pages.",
        CanonicalBaseUrl = "https://blog.example.com",
  
        AuthorName = "Jamie Rivers",
        AuthorBio = "Writing about content engines, static sites, and the tools in between.",
  
        // Explicit for teaching value even though both default to true.
        EnableRss = true,
        EnableSitemap = true,
  
        HeroContent = BuildHero(),
        MyWork = BuildMyWork(),
        Socials = BuildSocials(),
        MainSiteLinks = BuildMainSiteLinks(),
    }

Give every post a date:

BlogSiteContentService builds the channel from posts where Date is non-null, ordered by descending date. A post without date: renders normally at its URL but does not appear in the feed. Use ISO-8601 (2024-01-15) so YAML parses the value as a DateTimeOffset.

Minimal front matter for a post that appears in the feed:

title: Getting started with Pennington
description: A first-post walkthrough.
date: 2024-01-15
author: Jamie Rivers
tags: [pennington, getting-started]

Set CanonicalBaseUrl to your production origin

RssFeedBuilder prefixes every <link> and <guid> with the canonical base. Without it, aggregators receive relative URLs that do not resolve. Use the production scheme and host with no trailing slash, even when running locally.

Where the feed is served and discovered

In dev mode the feed is served live by the MapGet("/rss.xml", ...) handler registered in UseBlogSite. In a static build it is written to wwwroot/rss.xml alongside the other generated routes. The <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"> tag is injected into <head> automatically when EnableRss is on, so browser RSS extensions detect it without further configuration.

Result

/rss.xml returns an RSS 2.0 channel listing every dated post, newest first, with absolute URLs:

<rss version="2.0">
  <channel>
    <title>Jamie's Blog</title>
    <link>https://blog.example.com/</link>
    <description>Notes on shipping software.</description>
    <item>
      <title>Getting started with Pennington</title>
      <link>https://blog.example.com/blog/getting-started-with-pennington/</link>
      <guid>https://blog.example.com/blog/getting-started-with-pennington/</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 15 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      <description>A first-post walkthrough.</description>
    </item>
  </channel>
</rss>

Verify

  • Run dotnet run and fetch /rss.xml. Expect a <rss version="2.0"> document with one <item> per dated post, newest first
  • Inspect one <item>. <link> and <guid> start with the CanonicalBaseUrl, not a relative /blog/... path
  • Posts without a date: field are absent from the channel. When an expected post is missing, add date: to its front matter
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