Arctic RSS

Follow the open web without the noise.

Open Arctic RSS · Report a security issue · Contributing

Arctic RSS is a browser-based reader and community space for the open web. It brings RSS and Atom feeds, podcasts, AI-assisted reading, and Arctic IRC into one account and one calm reading experience. The active deployment is arcticrss.com; this repository also contains the Docker-based self-hosting stack and non-secret operational documentation.

Product

• Reader and discovery: Follow RSS and Atom feeds, browse a curated directory, organize sources into folders, use Classic/Card/Compact/River views, and keep personal read and starred states.
• Podcasts and collections: Discover or add podcast RSS feeds, stream and resume episodes, and save articles or episodes into personal collections.
• AI digests: Generate on-demand article summaries, keep digest history, and create topic-focused Smart Digests from selected sources.
• Arctic IRC: Use the same Arctic account for browser-first native community rooms, article sharing, reporting, moderation, and room discovery. Arctic IRC is an account-based chat experience, not an IRC protocol server.
• Operations: Email-verified accounts, role-protected administration, background refresh workers, health checks, backups, and a production Docker Compose deployment.

Scope

Arctic RSS reads and organizes third-party feeds; publishers retain ownership of their content. Podcast audio is streamed from the original enclosure URL. Arctic IRC is currently a beta feature for eligible signed-in users. External network and channel links lead to independently operated services with their own rules and retention practices.

See PROJECT.md for the operating model, DEPLOYMENT.md for generic deployment and recovery guidance, and docs/roadmaps/product-roadmap.md for planned product work.

Stack

• Next.js 16 App Router
• React 19
• TypeScript
• Tailwind CSS v4
• shadcn/ui
• Auth.js / NextAuth credentials auth
• Prisma 7 with PostgreSQL
• Redis-backed BullMQ worker container
• Docker Compose

Local Development

Use Node.js 22 or newer. Node 24 is pinned in .nvmrc to match the production Docker image.

1. Install dependencies:

npm install

1. Create an environment file:

cp .env.example .env

1. Update the CHANGE_ME values in .env. The example URLs target Docker service names; when running npm run dev directly on the host, use localhost for PostgreSQL and Redis.

2. Generate the Prisma client and apply committed migrations:

npm run prisma:generate
npm run prisma:deploy

1. Start the app:

npm run dev

The app runs at http://localhost:3000.

Docker

Copy .env.example to .env, then start the stack:

docker compose up --build

Services:

• web: Next.js app on port 3000
• worker: background feed refresh worker
• postgres: PostgreSQL database
• redis: Redis queue/cache dependency
• migrate: one-shot Prisma migrate deploy for committed migrations
• cloudflared: optional tunnel service behind the tunnel profile

To run with Cloudflare Tunnel:

docker compose --profile tunnel up --build

Production is served through Cloudflare at https://arcticrss.com. See DEPLOYMENT.md and PROJECT.md for the Hetzner runbook, backups, restores, upgrades, rollbacks, and health validation.

The public-safe readiness endpoint is available at /api/health. Docker uses the loopback-only liveness endpoint at /api/live.

Auth

This project uses Auth.js with local email/password credentials as the open-source default. Credentials and Google signups always begin as USER / FREE; a signup can never grant the ADMIN role. Production requires verified email addresses.

Promote an existing, active, verified account only from a trusted server shell:

npm run admin:bootstrap -- --email admin@example.com

The command is idempotent and writes an ADMIN_BOOTSTRAP_PROMOTE audit event. It has no HTTP endpoint, refuses missing, disabled, ambiguous, or unverified targets, and does not display the target address.

AI Summaries

Article summaries and unread digests use deterministic local providers by default, so development and self-hosted installs work without an external AI account. Set AI_PROVIDER=openai and OPENAI_API_KEY to use the OpenAI Responses API instead. AI_DEFAULT_MODEL, OPENAI_SUMMARY_MODEL, and AI_DIGEST_MODEL can override models. The /app/ai dashboard shows monthly usage, recent summaries, eligible unread articles, stored digest history, and per-user AI preferences.

Scripts

npm run dev
npm run admin:bootstrap -- --email admin@example.com
npm run build
npm run start
npm run lint
npm run test
npm run test:e2e
npm run typecheck
npm run prisma:generate
npm run prisma:migrate
npm run prisma:deploy
npm run worker

Product status

The reader, podcasts, AI features, Arctic IRC beta, administration tools, and production deployment are active. The roadmap distinguishes planned work from the product described above; it is not a statement of currently available features.

License

MIT