Wireburst

Wireburst monitors RSS/Atom feeds and posts new items into Discord, organized by category. Each feed gets its own dedicated text channel, grouped under a Discord category that matches your Wireburst categories. It turns Discord into an RSS reader — no separate app required.

• Polls all feeds every 15 minutes with conditional GET (ETag / Last-Modified) to minimize bandwidth
• Posts new items as rich embeds with title, full text, thumbnail, and source footer
• Each feed gets its own Discord channel, nested under its category group
• Managed from a local web admin panel and Discord slash commands
• OPML import/export for bulk feed management
• Categories and channels are created and moved automatically — no manual Discord setup needed

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Requirements

• Docker and Docker Compose
• A Discord account with admin access to a server

Python is not required on your host — everything runs inside the container.

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1. Create the Discord Bot

1. Go to https://discord.com/developers/applications
2. Click New Application and give it a name (e.g. "Wireburst")
3. Go to the Bot tab
4. Click Reset Token, copy the token — you'll need it in step 3 (Clone and Configure)
5. Under Privileged Gateway Intents, no additional intents are required — leave them all off

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2. Invite the Bot to Your Server

1. Back on the Discord Developer Portal, open your application and go to OAuth2 → URL Generator
2. Under Scopes, select: bot and applications.commands
   • Both are required. Omitting applications.commands causes slash commands to silently fail
3. Under Bot Permissions, select:
   • Manage Channels (required — the bot creates and moves channels automatically)
   • Send Messages
   • Embed Links (required for rich embeds)
   • Attach Files (required for OPML export via /feed export)
   • View Channel
   • Use Application Commands
4. Copy the generated URL, open it in a browser, and invite the bot to your server

Get your server ID

You'll need this for step 3 (Clone and Configure).

1. In Discord, go to User Settings → Advanced and enable Developer Mode
2. Right-click your server icon and choose Copy Server ID
3. Save that number

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3. Clone and Configure

git clone https://github.com/cruftbox/wireburst.git
cd wireburst
cp .env.example .env

Open .env and fill in your values:

DISCORD_TOKEN=your-bot-token-here
DISCORD_GUILD_ID=your-server-id-here
WEB_PORT=8080

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4. Start Wireburst

docker compose up -d

The bot appears online in your server within a few seconds. Slash commands may take up to a minute to register on first launch — if they don't appear after 2 minutes, confirm you included both bot and applications.commands scopes in the invite URL.

On first run, Wireburst creates an Uncategorized channel group in Discord automatically.

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Adding Categories and Feeds

Via the web panel

The web panel is available at http://localhost:8080 (or whatever WEB_PORT you set). It provides a table-based UI for managing feeds and categories:

• Add feeds and categories
• Bulk category assignment — change the category for multiple feeds at once, then click Save Category Changes to apply them all in one step
• OPML import and export
• Remove feeds and categories

⚠️ Security note: The web panel has no authentication. It is intended for use on a trusted local network only. Do not expose it to the public internet without adding a reverse proxy with authentication.

Via Discord slash commands

Create a category — Wireburst creates the Discord channel group automatically:

/category add Tech News
/category add Sports

Add feeds — each feed gets its own channel under the category, and the last 5 items are posted immediately:

/feed add https://hnrss.org/frontpage Tech News
/feed add https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/sport/rss.xml Sports

Bulk import via OPML — type /feed import in Discord and attach your .opml file. Feeds nested under OPML folders are assigned to matching categories; any missing categories are created automatically.

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Updating Wireburst

After pulling new code or editing source files, rebuild and restart the container:

git pull
docker compose build
docker compose up -d

docker restart wireburst alone does not pick up code changes — you must rebuild the image.

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Configuration Reference

Variable	Description	Default
DISCORD_TOKEN	Bot token from the Developer Portal	(required)
DISCORD_GUILD_ID	Numeric server ID	(required)
WEB_PORT	Port for the web admin panel	8080

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Slash Command Reference

Command	Description
/feed add <url> [category]	Add a feed; validates the URL, creates a Discord channel, and posts the last 5 items immediately
/feed remove <url>	Remove a feed (Discord channel is left in place)
/feed move <url> <new_category>	Move a feed to a different category; moves its Discord channel too
/feed list [category]	List feeds with their channel, last-checked time, and failure count
/feed refresh	Immediately poll all feeds outside the 15-minute schedule
/feed export	Download all feeds as an OPML file
/feed import <file>	Import feeds from an attached OPML file
/category add <name>	Create a category and its Discord channel group
/category remove <name>	Remove a category; its feeds are moved to Uncategorized
/category list	List categories with Discord group and feed count
/last5	Repost the last 5 items from the feed in the current channel
/help	Show all commands

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How Discord Structure Works

Wireburst manages Discord structure automatically:

• Each Wireburst category becomes a Discord channel group (category)
• Each feed within a category gets its own text channel inside that group
• When you move a feed to a different category (via web panel or /feed move), its Discord channel moves too — within a few seconds
• When you delete a category, its feeds move to Uncategorized and the empty Discord channel group is deleted automatically

You can freely drag channels and groups to reorder them within Discord — Wireburst doesn't touch ordering.

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Out of Scope (v1)

• Full-article scraping (embeds use feed-native content only)
• Per-user subscriptions
• Digest/batched posting
• Web panel authentication

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License

MIT