RSS Feed Automation in WordPress: Watch, Read and Publish Feeds

By Nitin Yawalkar October 30, 2026 9 min read

FlowMattic RSS Feed module: a new item in an RSS feed starts a workflow that summarises it with an AI Agent and posts it to Slack and email.

RSS feed automation in FlowMattic lets your WordPress site watch any feed, start a workflow for every new item, read a feed on demand, and even publish a feed of its own from workflow data. It is one built-in module, RSS Feed, with two triggers and two actions.

It suits content teams who curate news, agencies keeping an eye on client blogs, and product teams who want a changelog feed without another plugin. Everything runs on your own server, inside the automation plugin for WordPress you already use for the rest of your workflows.

What is the RSS Feed module?

RSS Feed is a core FlowMattic app, so there is nothing to install. In the builder’s app picker it sits with the utilities and is described as “Read from and write to RSS feeds.” It gives you four events:

New Item in RSS Feed (trigger): starts a workflow for each new item in one feed.
New Item in Multiple RSS Feeds (trigger): the same, across a list of feeds, each tracked on its own.
Retrieve RSS Feed Items (action): fetches a feed in the middle of a workflow.
Create New Item in RSS Feed (action): adds an item to a feed that your site serves.

The two triggers are polling triggers: FlowMattic checks the feed on a schedule you choose rather than waiting for the publisher to notify you. That makes RSS feed automation work with any RSS 2.0 feed, whether or not the site behind it offers webhooks.

How RSS feed automation works

Watching one feed

Create a workflow, add the trigger and choose RSS Feed, then the event New Item in RSS Feed.
In Choose Connect, keep No authentication required for a public feed, or pick a saved connect for a feed behind a token or login.
Set Frequency: anything from 1 Minute to 1 Day. The default is 10 Minutes.
Paste the feed address into RSS Feed URL.
Capture a response. FlowMattic fetches the feed, shows the newest item as sample data and remembers that item’s title as the starting point.
Map the item fields into your next steps and switch the workflow on.

On each check, every item listed above the remembered title counts as new. FlowMattic runs the workflow once per new item, oldest first, then remembers the newest title for next time. Item fields arrive with a channel_item_ prefix, such as channel_item_title, channel_item_link, channel_item_description and channel_item_pubDate. Namespaced tags are renamed with an underscore, so content:encoded becomes channel_item_content_encoded and dc:creator becomes channel_item_dc_creator.

FlowMattic builder showing the New Item in RSS Feed trigger settings with Choose Connect set to No authentication required, a 10 Minutes frequency and the RSS Feed URL field. — The New Item in RSS Feed trigger with Choose Connect, Frequency and the RSS Feed URL field.

Watching many feeds in one workflow

New Item in Multiple RSS Feeds replaces the URL box with RSS Feed URLs, one address per line. All feeds are checked on each polling interval, and each one keeps its own record of the last item it saw. Every run carries a feed_url field, so later steps know which feed the item came from. The sample you capture comes from the first URL in the list.

Reading a feed inside a workflow

Retrieve RSS Feed Items fetches a feed when the workflow reaches that step, for example on a schedule. The RSS Feed URL field accepts mapped data, and Response Format decides the shape of the result. Simple flattens the feed into individual fields. Advanced returns the channel details plus feed_items_json, every item as one JSON array, which is the format to hand to an Iterator or an external service.

Publishing your own feed

Create New Item in RSS Feed turns your site into a feed publisher. Enter an RSS Feed URL Slug (letters, numbers and hyphens) and the step shows the address the feed will live at, yoursite.com/rss-feed/your-slug. Each time the step runs it adds one item to that feed, and any RSS reader can subscribe to it.

FlowMattic builder showing the Create New Item in RSS Feed action with the slug acme-changelog, a feed title and Max Records set to 50. — Create New Item in RSS Feed shows the feed address under /rss-feed/ as you type the slug.

Key options and settings

Option	Where	What it does
Choose Connect	Both triggers	No authentication, or a saved connect whose bearer token, basic credentials, API key header or OAuth token is sent with the request.
Frequency	Both triggers	How often the feed is checked, from 1 Minute to 1 Day (default 10 Minutes).
RSS Feed URL / RSS Feed URLs	Triggers	One feed, or one feed per line for the multiple-feeds trigger.
Response Format	Retrieve RSS Feed Items	Simple (flattened fields) or Advanced (channel fields plus `feed_items_json`).
RSS Feed URL Slug	Create New Item	The feed’s address under `/rss-feed/`. Required.
Feed Title, Feed Link	Create New Item	Channel title (required) and link. The link defaults to the feed’s own address.
Max Records	Create New Item	How many items the feed shows. Default 50.
Remove Old Records on Record Limit?	Create New Item	Yes deletes items beyond Max Records from the database, to keep it clean.
Item Title, Item Source URL, Item Description	Create New Item	The required item fields. Description accepts plain text or HTML.
Author Name, Author Email, Item Category	Create New Item	Optional item details. Author shows only when both name and email are set.
Media URL, Media Length in Bytes, Media MIME Type	Create New Item	Adds an enclosure for a podcast file, image or other media. Length defaults to 0 and type to audio/mpeg when it can’t be detected.
Item Publish Date	Create New Item	The item’s date. The preferred format is ISO 8601.

Use cases

Summarise industry news for the team

A marketing team follows three trade publications and wants a two-line summary of each new article in Slack. An AI Agent reads the title and description and writes the summary with your own API key.

New Item in Multiple RSS Feeds → AI Agent → Slack

Monitor client blogs from one agency workflow

An agency lists every client’s blog feed in one trigger. A Router reads feed_url and sends each new post to the right client channel, so the account manager can share it the same day.

New Item in Multiple RSS Feeds → Router (by feed_url) → Slack · Email

Publish a product changelog feed

A SaaS team posts release notes from its build pipeline to a webhook. Each release becomes an item in a public feed at /rss-feed/changelog that customers can follow in any reader.

Webhook → Create New Item in RSS Feed

Run a podcast feed from a form

Acme’s audio team submits each new episode through a form with the title, show notes and the hosted MP3 address. The workflow writes the episode into the feed with Media URL, Media Length in Bytes and Media MIME Type filled in, so podcast players pick up the enclosure.

Form Builder submission → Create New Item in RSS Feed

Turn a partner’s announcements into draft posts

Northwind publishes partner news in a feed. Each item becomes a WordPress draft with the title and a link back to the source, ready for an editor to add commentary before it goes live.

New Item in RSS Feed → WordPress: New Post (draft)

Alert support when a status page reports an outage

Many status pages publish incidents as RSS. A Filter lets through only items whose title contains words such as “outage” or “degraded”, and the support team hears about it before the tickets arrive.

New Item in RSS Feed → Filter → Slack · Email

Send a morning digest

Instead of one message per item, a schedule fetches the whole feed each morning in Advanced format. An AI Agent turns feed_items_json into a short digest that goes out by email.

Schedule (daily) → Retrieve RSS Feed Items → AI Agent → Send Email

Tips and gotchas

A few details from the module’s code that are worth knowing before you rely on RSS feed automation in production:

The first capture sets the baseline. Items already in the feed when you capture do not start runs; only items published after that point do. On the multiple-feeds trigger, a feed you add later spends its first check recording its newest item.
New items are found by title. If the remembered item drops out of the feed or its title changes, the next check treats every item in the feed as new, so expect a burst of runs.
Skip Duplicate Events as a safety net. On the trigger’s Conditions tab, tick Skip Duplicate Events, set Duplicate Key to {channel_item_link} and choose a window of up to 30 days. An item whose link already ran within that window is recorded in Task History as skipped instead of running again.
RSS 2.0 structure. The module reads the channel and item elements of an RSS feed. An Atom feed, which uses entry elements, does not produce items.
How checks are timed. Each check is booked in FlowMattic’s own job table at the frequency you set. On a site connected to FlowMattic Cloud, an optional add-on with a Free plan, Cloud wakes the site when a check is due, whether or not anyone visits: on the minute on the Free plan, to the second on paid plans. Without Cloud, WordPress cron runs the checks, so they happen when WordPress cron runs on your site.
Retrieve RSS Feed Items has no connect. It makes a plain request, so use it for public feeds. Private feeds need the trigger with a connect.
Your own feed lists items in the order they were added, newest first, not by Item Publish Date. Keep Feed Title and Max Records the same on every run, because the feed’s channel settings come from the most recent item.
Build RSS-triggered workflows by hand. Workflow generation with AI, and workflows created over MCP, don’t start from the RSS Feed trigger, because it needs settings that can’t be filled in automatically.

Related features

API Polling: the same polling approach for any JSON API that has no webhooks.
Scheduler: run Retrieve RSS Feed Items at a fixed time of day.
Iterator: loop through feed_items_json one item at a time.
AI Agents: summarise, tag or rewrite feed items with your own model and key.

For more site-level triggers to pair with feeds, see WordPress automation.

FAQ

Can WordPress automatically create posts from an RSS feed?

Yes. Start a workflow with New Item in RSS Feed and add the WordPress New Post action, mapping the item title, link and description into the post. Saving as a draft first gives an editor the chance to review before anything is published.

How often does FlowMattic check an RSS feed?

As often as you set in Frequency: every 1, 2, 5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes, every 1, 2, 3, 6 or 12 hours, or once a day. The default is every 10 minutes. Each check is booked in FlowMattic’s own job table: on a site connected to FlowMattic Cloud, Cloud wakes the site when a check is due, and without Cloud, WordPress cron runs it.

Can I watch a private or authenticated feed?

Yes, with the triggers. Choose a saved connect in Choose Connect and FlowMattic sends its bearer token, basic credentials, API key header or OAuth token with each request. The Retrieve RSS Feed Items action makes a plain request, so it is for public feeds.

Can FlowMattic create an RSS feed for my site?

Yes. Create New Item in RSS Feed publishes a feed at /rss-feed/your-slug on your domain and adds one item each time it runs. You can run as many feeds as you have slugs, each with its own title and record limit.

Does the RSS trigger work with Atom feeds?

The module reads RSS 2.0 feeds, which wrap items in channel and item elements. Atom feeds use a different structure and won’t produce items, so look for the RSS version of the feed, which most sites offer.

Ready to put a feed to work? Try FlowMattic and build your first RSS workflow on a live demo site.