Discourse RSS Feeds: Auto-Post Forum Topics From Any Category

Short answer: Every public Discourse forum already publishes RSS feeds. Add .rss to a list address, such as /latest.rss for all new topics, /c/announcements/5.rss for one category or /tag/release.rss for one tag, and paste that address into an auto-poster. Each new topic can then be shared on social networks, messengers and team chats automatically. Choose the narrowest feed that fits, usually an announcements category, so replies and small talk never reach your public channels.

Discourse is open-source forum software used for customer communities, product support, open-source projects and clubs. A busy forum produces useful news: release announcements, event invitations, new guides, answers that solve common problems and featured member projects. Most of it stays inside the forum, where only members see it. Because Discourse builds feeds automatically, bringing the best topics to the networks where your audience already spends time needs no code and no plugin. This guide explains which feed addresses exist, how to choose between them, what the items contain, and how to avoid the common mistakes.

Which Discourse feeds exist

Discourse generates a feed for most list pages. The pattern is simple: take the address of a list page and add .rss to it. The most useful addresses are:

You can check an address by opening it in a browser while logged out. If the browser shows XML or offers to download a file, the feed works. The category number is visible in the address of the category page, for example /c/announcements/5; add .rss after the number.

Choose the narrowest feed that fits

The most common mistake is to connect /latest.rss and let everything flow out. A forum contains support questions, off-topic chat, bug reports and personal posts, and none of it was written for a public audience. Social followers do not want to read a stranger’s installation problem.

Better options:

• An announcements category. Staff post news there, and members cannot start topics. The feed is clean by design.
• A release or changelog category. Each new version becomes one post, which suits open-source projects; see auto-posting GitHub releases to social media for the same idea on another platform.
• An events category. Meetups, webinars and office hours are shared a few days before they happen.
• A showcase category. Member projects, shared with the author’s permission, give the community recognition.
• A tag. Staff add a tag such as social to any topic worth sharing, and the tag feed collects them across categories. This is the most flexible method because the choice is made by a person, topic by topic.

What is inside a Discourse feed item

Each item represents a topic. It has the topic title, a link to the topic, a publication date, the author, the category and a description. The description contains the first post of the topic as HTML. That has consequences for social posts:

• The title becomes the headline of the post, so write topic titles for outsiders, not for regulars.
• The description can be long and can contain images, quotes and code. An auto-poster that uses the description will cut it, so put the key sentence first in the topic.
• The link leads to the forum topic, where readers can reply. Make sure the topic is readable without logging in.

The feed shows topics in the order of recent activity, so an old topic that receives a reply may move up. A poster that remembers which items it has already shared will not repeat them; how this works is explained in how auto-posting tools prevent duplicate posts. Still, test with a reply on an old topic, so you know how your feed behaves.

Public, private and login-required forums

Feeds follow the same permissions as the forum. Anonymous visitors see only public categories, so a private category never appears in a public feed. Two settings change what is possible:

• Login-required forums. If the site requires login to read anything, the feed address cannot be fetched by an external service, and auto-posting does not work. Read how to auto-post a password-protected or private RSS feed for the options.
• Restricted categories. Staff-only or group-only categories stay out of the public feed, which is exactly what you want. Move topics you want to share into a public category first.

Never share content that members posted in a members-only space. Even in a public category, check the rules of your community: authors should know that announcements, showcases and tagged topics may be shared on social media.

Protect members’ privacy

A forum is a community, and its members trust you with their posts, names and sometimes their problems. When you turn topics into public posts, apply a few rules:

1. Share staff announcements by default. They were written for everyone.
2. Ask for permission before sharing a member’s project or story, and record it in the topic.
3. Never auto-post support questions, personal topics or anything with email addresses, order numbers or screenshots of private data.
4. State in your guidelines that selected topics may be shared outside the forum.
5. Remove a topic quickly from the public category if its author asks.

Timing: give moderators a moment

An announcement should not reach thousands of followers with a typo in the title or a missing image. A feed publishes a topic as soon as it exists, and an auto-poster reads the feed within minutes. Two habits prevent embarrassing posts:

• Draft first. Write the announcement as a personal message or in a staff-only category, polish it, then move it into the public category. The feed sees it only after the move.
• Check the preview. Before moving the topic, look at the first lines and the first image, because those are what the social post will show.

If you need exact timing, such as an announcement that must appear at nine o’clock on launch day, prepare the topic in advance and move it just before the time, or use posting windows in the auto-poster so shares go out only during chosen hours. Planning around launches is covered in scheduling auto-posts around an embargo or press release date.

Feeds, webhooks and the API

Discourse also offers webhooks, which send an event to another system whenever something happens, and a full API for reading and writing content. They are powerful, but they need a developer, a receiving service and ongoing maintenance. For the simple job of sharing selected topics, a feed is usually enough: it needs no keys, it works with any RSS-capable tool and it follows the forum’s own permissions. Choose webhooks or the API when you need immediate reactions, replies or user events. The differences between feeds, webhooks and polling are explained in RSS vs webhooks vs API polling.

Step by step: from forum to social channels

1. Decide which category or tag will carry shareable topics, and write the posting rules for staff.
2. Open the feed address while logged out and check that titles and descriptions look right.
3. Paste the address into an auto-poster as a source and connect your channels, for example a Facebook Page, a Telegram channel or a Discord server.
4. Choose the post format. Title plus link is the safest choice, because the forum description can be long.
5. Add UTM parameters, so your analytics show which network brings readers back to the forum; see tracking RSS automation with UTM parameters.
6. Publish a test topic in the category and check the result on each network.

If you also want release or status news in a team chat, RSS to Google Chat, Mattermost, Webex and Zulip shows how a feed becomes chat notifications.

Write topics that work as social posts

A topic in an announcements category is the source text of a social post, so a little discipline pays off:

• Clear titles. “Version 4.2 released: faster search and a new editor” beats “Update”.
• The key sentence first. The first lines of the first post become the preview text.
• One image at the top. The first image of the topic is usually the best candidate for the preview card; if the wrong picture appears, see how to control which image gets auto-posted.
• A call to action. Tell readers what to do next: read the guide, register for the event or ask a question in the topic.

The reverse direction: from your blog into Discourse

Communities also benefit from content arriving in the forum. Many teams publish every new blog article as a topic in an announcements category, so members can discuss it where they already are. PostRSS can publish to Discourse as a target as well, so the same blog feed can feed your social networks and your forum at once. Keep the two directions apart: do not connect a forum feed back into the forum, or the same topic will circulate in a loop.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Connecting the whole forum. Use a category or a tag instead of the latest topics of everything.
• Using the posts feed. It contains replies, and every comment would become a social post.
• Weak topic titles. Titles written for insiders mean nothing on a social network.
• Sharing members’ work without consent. Always ask first.
• No check after upgrades. Forum plugins and themes change what appears at the top of topics. Look at your next post after every major change.

How PostRSS works with Discourse

PostRSS has been publishing RSS and Atom feeds to social networks since 2014. Paste a Discourse category or tag feed, connect your accounts and choose how each post is built from the title, the description or the page title. PostRSS checks the feed as often as every minute and shares each new topic, with its image and link, to the channels you choose among 66 supported networks, messengers, team chats and blogs, including Facebook Pages, LinkedIn, Telegram, Discord and Mastodon. Keyword filters let you include or exclude topics by words in the title or description, UTM parameters track visits, and posting windows control the timing. See the PostRSS features page and the plan limits on the pricing page. More community ideas are under the Community Growth tag.

قراءة ذات صلة

• Announce help center updates automatically
• Status page RSS and incident updates
• Zulip channels and topics for RSS feed notifications

The bottom line

A Discourse forum already has the feeds you need: add .rss to a category, tag or list address. Pick the narrowest source, usually an announcements category or a tag that staff set by hand, write topic titles for outsiders, respect members’ privacy and test how the feed behaves when old topics receive replies. Then connect the address to an auto-poster and let every selected topic reach your audience on the networks they use.

FAQ

Does Discourse have an RSS feed?

Yes. Add .rss to most list addresses, for example latest.rss, a category address with its number or a tag address. The feed contains the topics of that list with their title, link, date and first post.

How do I find the feed of one category?

Open the category page and add .rss to the end of its address, after the category number. Open the result while logged out to confirm that anonymous visitors can read it.

Can I auto-post only selected topics?

Yes. Give those topics a tag, or move them into a dedicated category, and connect the tag or category feed. Staff then decide which topics are shared simply by tagging them.

Will replies be posted to social media?

Not from a category or tag feed, which lists topics. The posts feed does include replies, so avoid it for public channels.

Why does the feed not work for my private forum?

External services cannot read a forum that requires login. Make a public announcements category and connect its feed, or share the content through another public page.