rxs is a local-first, keyboard-driven RSS, Atom, and JSON Feed reader for the terminal. It stores downloaded articles in SQLite, starts without an account, and remains useful offline.

Screenshots

Navigate from the initial feed list through filtering, article selection, and the focused reader:

Browse feeds, articles, and a reading preview side by side:

Open an article in the focused reader:

Install

Go 1.26 or newer is required when building from source.

go install github.com/polera/rxs/cmd/rxs@latest
rxs

Precompiled binaries for Linux, macOS, Windows, and FreeBSD on amd64 and arm64 are also available from GitHub Releases. Download the archive for your platform, extract rxs (rxs.exe on Windows), and place it somewhere on your PATH. Each release includes checksums.txt for verifying the download.

rxs checks GitHub Releases once a day when starting the interactive UI. If a newer release is available, choose to install it or defer the prompt for 24 hours. To check and upgrade immediately, run:

rxs upgrade

Upgrades download the release archive for the current operating system and architecture, verify it against the published SHA-256 checksum, and replace the current executable.

For local development:

go build -o rxs ./cmd/rxs
./rxs

Feeds can also be added without opening the terminal interface. The command fetches the feed immediately and stores its articles for offline reading:

rxs add https://example.com/feed.xml

The database lives in the platform user-data directory by default ($XDG_DATA_HOME/rxs/rxs.db or ~/.local/share/rxs/rxs.db on Linux and FreeBSD). Pass -db PATH to use a different database. No configuration file is required.

Use

Press a, enter an HTTP or HTTPS feed URL, and press Enter. The feed is fetched immediately. Downloaded article text is searchable and available after the network goes away.

Key	Action
j / k, arrows	Move in the active pane; scroll by line in the reader
h / l	Change pane
ctrl+f / ctrl+b	Page down / up in the feed list or reader
ctrl+d / ctrl+u	Half page down / up in the reader
gg / G	Go to the beginning / end of the active list or article
/, then n / N	Find in the open article; select the next / previous match
Tab / Shift-Tab	Change pane, or select the next / previous link in the reader
Enter	Open an article, or open the selected link
Space	Toggle read/unread
s	Toggle starred
r / R	Refresh selected feed / all feeds
/ in feeds	Filter feeds by title or URL; submit an empty filter to clear
/ in articles	Search downloaded titles and text; submit an empty search to clear
u	Show / hide read articles for this session
a / d	Add / remove a feed
o	Open the original article in the system browser
i / e	Import / export an OPML file
c	Preview and select a color scheme
?	Show help
q	Ask to quit, or close help and confirmation dialogs
Esc	Close an input dialog

The layout adapts to the terminal: browsing shows all three panes when wide, feeds and articles at medium widths, and one pane on narrow terminals. Opening the reader collapses the feed and article panes at every width so the article uses the full terminal. An unread article is marked read when you reach its bottom and then press h, Left, or Shift-Tab (when no link is selected) to return to the article list.

rxs saves each article's reading position when you leave the reader or confirm that you want to quit. Opening that article again resumes at the saved position, even after restarting rxs or using a different terminal size.

Reading configuration

Read articles are hidden from the article listing by default. Press u to show them for the current session. To show read articles initially instead, add this to config.json:

{
  "reading": {
    "hide_read": false
  }
}

Article previews remain unread while you move through the article list by default. To mark each preview read when you scroll away from it, add this to config.json:

{
  "reading": {
    "mark_read_on_scroll": true
  }
}

The setting applies to j / k, arrow keys, gg, and G. A jump marks only the preview you leave, and movement clamped at a list boundary does not mark anything.

Browser configuration

Links and original articles open in the system browser by default. To use an interactive terminal browser, create config.json in the platform configuration directory ($XDG_CONFIG_HOME/rxs/config.json or ~/.config/rxs/config.json on Linux and FreeBSD):

{
  "browser": {
    "mode": "tui",
    "command": "w3m",
    "args": ["{url}"]
  }
}

command is executed directly, without a shell. The article URL replaces {url} in an argument; if no argument contains {url}, it is appended. Use -config PATH for a different local configuration file. Set "mode" to "system" (or remove the file) to use the operating system browser.

Color schemes

The terminal interface includes default, catppuccin-latte, catppuccin-mocha, dracula, gruvbox-dark, gruvbox-light, high-contrast, nord, solarized-dark, solarized-light, and tokyo-night. Select one in the same config.json:

{
  "appearance": {
    "color_scheme": "nord"
  }
}

Names are case-insensitive and surrounding whitespace is ignored. Missing appearance configuration uses default, which preserves the original terminal colors. Press c in the interface and use j / k (or the arrow keys) to preview the built-in schemes live. Enter applies the choice and writes it to the active configuration file; Esc restores the previous scheme. The foreground and background are both set for named schemes so light schemes remain readable. catppuccin-latte, gruvbox-light, and solarized-light suit light terminals; high-contrast is a black-and-white scheme whose colors clear WCAG AA. Use -config PATH to load and persist the setting in another file.

Refreshes use conditional HTTP requests when servers provide ETag or Last-Modified, enforce time and size limits, follow at most five redirects, and record per-feed errors without interrupting navigation. A bounded worker pool fetches feeds concurrently; SQLite writes are serialized and transactional.

Develop

go test ./...
go test -race ./...
go vet ./...

Fixtures for RSS, Atom, and JSON Feed live in testdata/feeds. Database migrations are embedded from internal/store/migrations.

Release workflows build Linux, macOS, Windows, and FreeBSD binaries for amd64 and arm64, with CGO disabled.

License

rxs is released under the MIT license.

Every dependency is MIT or BSD-3-Clause; both are permissive and impose no conditions beyond attribution. Release archives ship a THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.txt listing each linked module with its full license text. To regenerate it locally:

make licenses

The set of linked modules differs by platform, so the file is generated per build target from the compiled binary rather than checked in.