hys

Hys — RSS Reader for Digital Minimalists

Hys is a fast, lightweight, and opinionated terminal RSS reader written in Zig that helps you avoid doom-scrolling. It enforces a once-per-day fetch limit, encouraging you to gather new information in a single daily batch like a morning newspaper, rather than receive an endless stream of pings and notifications throughout the day.

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Features

Feature	Description
Doomscroll-Free	Designed as a "Daily Digest." Enforces a fetch limit to help you stay informed without the infinite scroll.
Blazing Fast	Built with Zig. Starts in milliseconds and parses hundreds of items in seconds.
Open Links	OSC 8 hyperlink support to open articles in your default browser from URLs and links.
OPML Ready	Import your existing subscriptions from any standard RSS reader or export your feeds effortlessly.
Multilingual Support	Native support for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indic, Cyrillic etc.
Feed Groups	Organize your feeds into groups (e.g. tech, science, art) and read them individually or all at once.
Pager TUI	Automatically pipes into less for a distraction-free reading experience with intuitive vim-style keybindings.
AI-Friendly	Optional plain JSON output for seamless integration with AI agents and LLM workflows.
Search	Find text in your feeds with the search functionality integrated into less.
Universal Feed Support	RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0 with robust parsing, HTML entity decoding, and UTF-8 validation

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Quick Start (macOS/Linux)

Homebrew

brew install paulilaaso/tap/hys

Arch Linux (AUR)

yay -S hys          # Latest release
yay -S hys-git      # Latest development version

Add your first feed and start reading:

hys --sub "https://news.ycombinator.com/rss"
hys

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Installation (macOS/Linux/Windows)

Prerequisites

• Zig 0.16.0: For building from source. Install instructions
• libcurl: Robust HTTP/2 and TLS support. Install via your package manager:
  • macOS: Pre-installed (no action needed)
  • Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt-get install libcurl4-openssl-dev
  • Fedora: sudo dnf install libcurl-devel
  • Arch: sudo pacman -S curl
  • Windows: choco install curl (using Chocolatey) or vcpkg install curl:x64-windows

Build from Source

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/paulilaaso/hys.git
   cd hys

2. Build and Install:

   # Install to ~/.local/bin (make sure it's in your PATH)
   zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseSafe install -p ~/.local

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Usage

Reading Feeds

# Add a feed to your main group
hys --sub "https://site.com/feed"

# Add a feed to a specific group
hys tech --sub "https://site.com/feed"

# Read the main group
hys

# Read a specific group
hys tech

# Read multiple groups combined
hys tech,science,art

# Read all groups at once
hys --all

# One-off read of a URL (doesn't save to config)
hys https://example.com/rss.xml

Manage Feeds and Groups

Action	Command
Subscribe to a feed (title optional)	hys --sub "https://site.com/feed" "Title"
Import OPML into main group	hys --import ~/downloads/feeds.opml
Export main group's feeds (OPML)	hys --export backup.opml
Set display name for a group	hys <group> --name "Pretty Name"
List all groups	hys --groups

Daily Flow and History

Action	Command
Read from all groups	hys --all
View previous days' fetches	hys --day 1 or hys --day 2
View last fetch regardless of date	hys --last or hys -l
Reset today's daily limiter	hys --reset

Config and Pager

Action	Command
Display help with all available flags	hys --help
Display version information	hys --version
Show config file path	hys --config
Force-enable pager	hys --pager
Disable pager for this run	hys --no-pager
Output as JSON (no pager)	hys --json

Navigation (Pager Mode)

When Hys opens in your system pager (less), these keys are available:

• Line-by-line

  • j or Down: Scroll down one line
  • k or Up: Scroll up one line
  • Enter: Scroll down one line
  • y: Scroll up one line

• Paging

  • Space or f or PageDown: Page down one screen
  • b or PageUp: Page up one screen
  • d: Half-page down
  • u: Half-page up

• Jumps

  • g: Jump to top
  • G: Jump to bottom

• Search

  • /text: Search forward
  • ?text: Search backward
  • n: Next match
  • N: Previous match

• Misc

  • h: Show help for all less commands
  • q: Exit back to terminal

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Configuration

Hys creates a JSON configuration file at ~/.hys/config.json on first run.

{
  "display": {
    "maxTitleLength": 120,
    "maxDescriptionLength": 300,
    "maxItemsPerFeed": 20,
    "showPublishDate": true,
    "showDescription": true,
    "showLink": true,
    "truncateUrls": true,
    "pagerMode": true,
    "underlineUrls": true,
    "dateFormat": "%Y-%m-%d"
  },
  "history": {
    "retentionDays": 50,
    "fetchIntervalDays": 1,
    "dayStartHour": 0
  },
  "network": {
    "maxFeedSizeMB": 0.2
  }
}

Note

Apple's default Terminal does not support OSC 8 hyperlinks. If you're using Apple Terminal, you need to set truncateUrls to false in your config. For a better experience, consider using a terminal that supports OSC 8 hyperlinks, such as Ghostty, Wezterm, Kitty, or iTerm2.

Managing Feeds

Feeds are stored in JSON files within ~/.hys/feeds/. Each group has its own file corresponding to its name (e.g., main is stored in ~/.hys/feeds/main.json).

To remove or edit a feed:

1. Open the group's JSON file (e.g., ~/.hys/feeds/main.json).
2. Locate the feed object within the feeds array.
3. Delete the object to unsubscribe, or edit fields like xmlUrl or text.
4. Save the file.

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License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.