Agg - Digital Journal RSS Generator

A personal digital journal aggregator that collects activities from various platforms (GitHub, Trakt, Flickr) and generates an RSS feed. Built with F# and ASP.NET Core.

Overview

Agg automatically aggregates my digital activities into a single RSS feed, creating a curated stream of me discoveries, thoughts, and activities. The application runs as a web server that generates and serves an RSS feed containing:

• Most recent GitHub commit - Latest code activity from my repositories
• Movie and TV ratings - Reviews from Trakt.tv
• Photos - Latest uploads from Flickr

The RSS feed is automatically regenerated every 12 hours and served at the root endpoint.

Features

• Automated aggregation - Pulls data from multiple APIs on a schedule
• RSS 2.0 compliant - Standard RSS format with custom content types
• Web hosting - Built-in web server serves the generated RSS feed
• Docker support - Containerized deployment ready
• Environment-based configuration - Secure API key management

Prerequisites

• .NET 9.0 SDK
• Docker (for containerized deployment)
• API keys for:
  • Flickr (for photo data)
  • Trackt (for TV/movie data)

Configuration

Create a .env file in the project root with your API credentials:

TRACKT_TV_API_KEY=
FLICKR_API_KEY=

Running Locally

Development Mode

# Restore dependencies
dotnet restore

# Run the application
dotnet run

The application will:

1. Generate an initial RSS feed
2. Start a web server on http://localhost:5001
3. Schedule automatic regeneration every 12 hours

Production Build

# Build for release
dotnet publish -c Release -o ./publish

# Run the published application
cd publish
dotnet Agg.dll

Docker Deployment

Build the Docker Image

docker build -t agg .

Run with Docker

docker run -d \
  --name agg-journal \
  -p 5001:5001 \
  --env-file .env \
  agg

RSS Feed Structure

The generated RSS feed includes:

<rss version="2.0">
  <channel>
    <title>Joe's digital journal</title>
    <description>A curated stream of my discoveries, thoughts, and activities</description>
    <lastBuildDate>[timestamp]</lastBuildDate>
    <!-- Items with custom content types -->
    <item>
      <contentType>code-commit|movie-review|episode-review|photo</contentType>
      <!-- Standard RSS fields plus custom metadata -->
    </item>
  </channel>
</rss>

Architecture

Agg/
├── RecentActivity/           # Data source modules
│   ├── MostRecentCommit.fs      # GitHub integration
│   ├── MostRecentMovieRating.fs # Trakt.tv integration
│   └── MostRecentPhoto.fs       # Flickr integration
├── Program.fs                # Main application and web server
├── Agg.fsproj               # Project configuration
├── Dockerfile               # Container configuration
├── .env                     # Environment variables (create this)
└── wwwroot/                 # Generated static files
    └── journal.xml          # RSS feed output

Customization

To add new data sources:

1. Create a new module in RecentActivity/
2. Implement a function with signature: unit -> Async<string option>
3. Add the function to rssItemGenerators array in Program.fs
4. Return RSS <item> XML as a string