Reading feeds

rss is a separate binary from rssd and writes nothing, anywhere — no cache, no state file, no read/unread tracking. It is a pure window onto the tree the daemon produced.

That constraint is deliberate. It's what demonstrates the output tree is a genuine API rather than an implementation detail, and it means you can run rss against a store on a read-only mount, a snapshot, or someone else's backup.

From the shell

rss feeds                    # what's subscribed, and is it healthy
rss ls rust-blog             # entries, newest first
rss show rust-blog:1         # read the newest one
rss link rust-blog:1         # just the URL
rss open rust-blog:1         # open it in a browser
rss search "borrow checker"  # across every feed

Because the store is just files, the tools you already have work too:

grep -rl "async" demo/store/*/entries/*.xml
ls -t demo/store/lobsters/entries/ | head
find demo/store -name '*.r2.xml'      # everything that was ever edited

The TUI

rss tui --root demo

Modal, like vim. No header bar, no borders, no mouse required. Three panes — feeds, entries, and a reading pane — with a status line at the bottom.

Normal mode

Key
h j k l	j/k move, h/l change pane
gg G	first / last
ctrl-d ctrl-u	half page
ctrl-f ctrl-b	full page
Tab	cycle pane focus
Enter	open the entry in the reading pane
J K	next / previous entry without leaving the reader
o	open the source URL in a browser
y	yank the source URL to the clipboard
/ ?	search forward / backward
n N	next / previous match
p	toggle the reading pane
r	refresh from disk
zz	centre the cursor line
:	command mode
q	quit

Ex commands

:q  :qa            quit
:e rust-blog       switch feed
:feeds             focus the feed pane
:set               list every option and its value
:set nopreview     hide the reading pane
:set width=100     set an option
:sort oldest       newest | oldest | title | feed
:links             every link in the current entry, numbered
:open 3            open link [3] from that list
:N                 jump to entry N
:help              key reference

:set changes the running session only — exactly like vim. To persist preferences, write them in rss.toml; see Configuration.

Reading an entry

Enter renders the article in the reading pane with numbered link references, so you can see every outbound URL without leaving the terminal. :links prints the same numbering, and :open 3 opens link 3 — which is why the two agree.

The daemon does not need to be running. The TUI reads the filesystem on a timer and on r, so it works perfectly against a static tree, a snapshot, or a directory you rsynced from somewhere else.