Bubo Reader

Bubo Reader is a hyper‑minimalist, static RSS/Atom/JSON feed aggregator that can be deployed on any server or CI‑based platform such as Netlify or Glitch. From a developer’s perspective, the project is intentionally lightweight: it fetches feeds at build time, renders them with a Nunjucks template, and outputs a pure static HTML page. This design eliminates runtime dependencies on databases or server‑side runtimes, making the deployment footprint tiny and highly cacheable.

Technical Stack & Architecture

• Language: TypeScript (strictly typed, transpiled to ES6) ensures type safety for feed parsing and rendering logic.
• Runtime: Node.js 18+ (ES modules) powers the build script. All network I/O is performed with native fetch, wrapped in custom throttling logic.
• Template Engine: Nunjucks, a Jinja‑style templating system, provides declarative rendering. The template (config/template.html) can be swapped for any markup language or even a different templating engine if needed.
• Data Source: conf/feeds.json is the sole configuration file. It maps categories to arrays of feed URLs, allowing developers to organize feeds hierarchically.
• Build Pipeline: src/index.ts orchestrates feed fetching, parsing (via built‑in DOMParser for XML/JSON), and rendering. The output is a single public/index.html file along with static assets (style.css, optional images).

The architecture is intentionally single‑pass: fetch → normalize → render. There is no caching layer or background worker; the static page is regenerated on each deployment or manual build. This simplicity yields predictable execution time and makes it trivial to audit the data flow.

Core Capabilities & API Surface

• Feed Normalization: The utilities module parses RSS, Atom, and JSON feeds into a unified internal representation (FeedItem). It handles common pitfalls such as relative URLs, missing dates, and duplicate entries.
• Throttling & Batching: Developers can fine‑tune MAX_CONNECTIONS and DELAY_MS in index.ts to respect upstream rate limits or reduce CI build times. This is useful when aggregating dozens of feeds from slow sources.
• Extensible Renderer: renderer.ts exposes a small API (render(items, templatePath)) that can be overridden. By injecting a custom renderer, developers can integrate React, Svelte, or any other front‑end framework without touching the feed logic.
• Programmatic Build: The build script can be imported as a module in another Node project, enabling Bubo to act as a library that pre‑generates feed pages for larger static sites.

Deployment & Infrastructure

• Self‑Hosting: Run npm run build:bubo locally and serve the public/ folder with any static file server (NGINX, Caddy, Cloudflare Pages). No database or persistent state is required.
• CI/CD Friendly: Netlify and GitHub Actions examples demonstrate automatic rebuilds on feeds.json changes. The build is deterministic, so caching strategies (e.g., Netlify’s cache key) can be leveraged to speed up rebuilds.
• Containerization: A minimal Dockerfile can wrap the Node build step, producing a lightweight image that pushes the static files to an S3 bucket or a CDN. The absence of runtime dependencies simplifies container layers.

Integration & Extensibility

• Plugin Hooks: The utilities.ts module is the primary extension point. Developers can add custom parsers for proprietary feed formats or inject pre‑processing steps (e.g., Markdown conversion).
• Webhooks: While Bubo itself is static, developers can hook the build step into external services (e.g., a webhook from a Git repo or a scheduled CloudWatch event) to trigger regeneration.
• Custom Styling: The CSS file is fully replaceable. Because the output is a plain HTML page, developers can integrate any CSS framework (Tailwind, Bootstrap) or even inline critical CSS for performance.

Developer Experience

• Configuration: A single JSON file (feeds.json) plus a template makes onboarding fast. Adding or removing feeds is as simple as editing JSON.
• Documentation: The README contains clear sections on architecture, throttling, and deployment targets. Inline comments in index.ts explain the flow.
• Community & Support: The project is hosted on GitHub with an active issue tracker. Licensing is permissive (MIT), encouraging reuse in commercial or internal projects.

Use Cases

1. Personal Aggregator – A developer can build a lightweight, self‑hosted RSS dashboard to stay updated on niche blogs without third‑party services.
2. Corporate Knowledge Base – Teams can aggregate internal documentation feeds (e.g., Confluence RSS) into a single static page served on an intranet.
3. Static Site Enhancements – Integrate Bubo into a larger static site generator (Hugo, Jekyll) to embed live feed snippets without additional server logic.
4. CI‑Triggered Updates – Use GitHub Actions to rebuild the feed page whenever a new entry appears, ensuring the public site always shows the latest content.

Advantages Over Alternatives