Get Started

Welcome to the documentation for the Rivu, a modern RSS 2.0 compliant feed generator for Node.js with type-safety. This guide will help you install the library, understand basic usage and get up and running in just a few minutes using the package.

TIP: If this is your first time using Rivu, it is recommended to read this page from start-to-finish.

Installing Rivu

To install Rivu, you will Node.js installed with a package manager like npm accessible on your system. Regardless, to install Rivu with a package manager of your choice, follow these commands:

npm

npm install rivu

yarn

yarn install rivu

pnpm

pnpm install rivu

Basic Usage

With Rivu installed and accessible, you can get started using the package right away and generate an RSS XML feed for yourself. The following instructions will help you generate the feed as a string output in your terminal.

1. Create a feed.ts script which Node.js can execute. We recommend using TypeScript to get the most out of the package.

2. Add the following contents to the feed.ts script:

   import { Feed } from "rivu";
   
   const feed = new Feed({
     title: "Lorem Ipsum",
     link: "https://jarmos.dev/feed.xml",
     description: "Lorem Ipsum",
     items: [
       {
         title: "Lorem Ipsum",
         description: "Lorem Ipsum",
         pubDate: new Date("2025-10-10"),
       },
     ],
   });
   
   console.log(feed.generate());

3. Execute the script using Node.js:

   node feed.ts

   Caution

   Node.js v22.x and above is required to execute TypeScript files natively. Read the documentations here - Running TypeScript Natively to learn more.

4. Upon successful execution, you should see the following output of a serialised RSS 2.0 feed on your console:

   <rss version="2.0">
   <channel>
    <title><![CDATA[Lorem Ipsum]]></title>
    <link><![CDATA[https://jarmos.dev/feed.xml]]></link>
    <description><![CDATA[Lorem ipsum]]></description>
    <item>
      <title><![CDATA[lorem ipsum]]></title>
      <description><![CDATA[lorem ipsum]]></description>
    </item>
   </channel>
   </rss>

Rivu makes serialising data handled by Node.js into a valid RSS 2.0 compliant feed a walk-in-the-park. There is more to it and if you want to learn more about Rivu and its public API, check out the API Reference section to learn more.

Tip

It is possible to enable Rivu to generate dynamic RSS feeds using JavaScript frameworks like Nuxt.js. My personal website - jarmos.dev has a route (jarmos.dev/rss.xml) which dynamically generates the RSS feed for me on the server. If you use Nuxt.js as well and want to implement a similar functionality then you can check out the source code of the implementation for inspiration.

Contribute to the Project

Contributions to the project are welcome! Here’s how you can contribute to the project in numerous ways:

1. Report bugs in the project and also engage in community discussions and answer questions from other users.

2. Share PRs with patches and bug fixes in the project. Feature enhancements which do not deviate the contextual use case of the project are also welcome.

3. Sponsor the project a minimum of $5 a month to keep the lights on.

To learn more about the ways you can contribute to the project, check out the Contributing Guidelines document.

Get Support

Found a bug or need help/clarification on usage? Head over to the project’s repository to open a new discussion thread or file a bug report with your findings. It is recommended to search for existing threads before creating a new one though. There will always be a good chance, someone else may already have stumbled across the issue you are facing and may have provided a solution to it as well.

License

The project and its source code is made available to the public under an open-source license. Therefore, you are free to copy, modify and/or distribute the source code as you deem fit by adhering to the terms and conditions of the open-source license. For more information on the licensing T&Cs, check out the LICENSE document.