• Home
    • Pugpig Bolt
    • Content and Workflows
    • RSS

    Pugpig RSS Edition & Timeline Feed Specification

    Written by Benji Weiser

    Updated at October 16th, 2025

    • Pugpig Bolt

      • Pugpig Site

        • Pugpig Archive

          • Working with Pugpig

            • Pugpig Consulting

              Table of Contents

              The Edition Feed Standard elements overview Other configuration Order of RSS feed processing Example feed: Custom elements

              The Edition Feed

              Pugpig supports RSS feeds for creating both articles (see more here) as well as editions/magazines and timelines.

              It is common to use this for editions in particular. It is quite rare to use this feature for timelines as they are often set up as part of onboarding. However, if your app does frequently change its timelines, it may be useful.

              For a more in depth look at our feed importing process and our article feed specification, see here.

              Standard elements overview

              This is an overview of required elements in our feed. You can view these in an example feed below:

              • <rss:guid> for the edition key, which should match the In App Purchase code and your entitlement system if relevant. Specific additional categories can be sent if the IAP codes and entitlement codes differ.
              • <rss:title> for the edition title.
              • <dcterms:issued> for the publication date of the issue, which is user facing.
              • <rss:description> for the summary of the edition.
              • <media:content url="https://www.pugpig.com/wp-content/uploads/edition-cover1.png" width="1040px" type="image/jpeg" /> for the cover image.
              • <category> a collection tag which should also be included on any articles that are part of this edition. We may also map other fields (such as the <guid> element) as a tag, since it can be used as an identifier for the edition. It must be unique to this edition.
              • <pubDate> this is the non-visible publish date of the edition, representing when it is published in our CMS. Usually this will be when the edition is first added to the feed. This is not user facing.
              • <atom:updated> this is used to check for when the edition is updated in the feed.
              Delete

              Other configuration

              It is possible for us on our side to set the state of imported editions to be draft, pending or publish by default, as well as any settings found on the edit edition page (eg. if you'd like the edition to be ordered by date or rss feed, if you'd like to use section headers etc.).

              Delete

              Order of RSS feed processing

              It should not matter if the edition feed is processed before or after the article feeds. If the edition feed comes first, the editions will be created but remain empty until the articles arrive. If the article feed is processed first, the articles will be created and then inserted into the edition once it is created.


              Example feed:

              Additional tags can be added to your RSS feed in order to map to information from your RSS feed to fields in Express. 

              <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
              <rss
                xmlns:app="http://www.w3.org/2007/app"
                xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.A2org/2005/Atom"
                xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
                xmlns:dcterms="http:/purl.org/dc/terms/" version="2.0"
                xmlns:pp="https://www.pugpig.com/example-feed/"
                xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/"
              >
                <channel>
                  <link>https://example.pugpig.com/feed/editions</link>
                  <atom:updated>2025-12-06T11:44:07</atom:updated>
                  <item>
                    <guid isPermaLink="false">uniquieID1</guid>
                    <title>September 2012</title>
                    <dcterms:issued>2012-07-31</dcterms:issued>
                    <category domain="http://schema.pugpig.com/productid/itunes">september2012</category>
                    <description><![CDATA[This is a standard free edition]]></description>
                    <pp:paid>free</pp:paid>
                    <media:content url="https://www.pugpig.com/wp-content/uploads/edition-cover1.png"
                      width="1040px" type="image/jpeg" />
                    <pubDate>2025-09-11T00:00:00</pubDate>
                    <atom:updated>2025-09-11T00:00:00</atom:updated>
                  </item>
                  <item>
                    <guid isPermaLink="false">uniquieID2</guid>
                    <title>December 2019</title>
                    <dcterms:issued>2019-11-13</dcterms:issued>
                    <category domain="http://schema.pugpig.com/productid/itunes">december2019</category>
                    <description><![CDATA[This is a paid edition]]></description>
                    <pp:paid>paid</pp:paid>
                    <category domain="http://schema.pugpig.com/timelinegroup">news</category>
                    <media:content url="https://www.pugpig.com/wp-content/uploads/edition-cover2.png"
                      width="1040px" type="image/jpeg" />
                    <pubDate>2025-11-13T14:55:00</pubDate>
                    <atom:updated>2025-12-04T10:31:00</atom:updated>
                  </item>
                  <item>
                    <guid isPermaLink="false">uniquieID3</guid>
                    <title>January 2020</title>
                    <dcterms:issued>2019-12-11</dcterms:issued>
                    <category domain="http://schema.pugpig.com/productid/itunes">january2020</category>
                    <description><![CDATA[This is a paid edition]]></description>
                    <pp:paid>paid</pp:paid>
                    <media:content url="https://www.pugpig.com/wp-content/uploads/edition-cover3.png"
                      width="1040px" type="image/jpeg" />
                    <pubDate>2025-11-13T14:55:00</pubDate>
                    <atom:updated>2025-12-04T10:44:00</atom:updated>
                  </item>
                </channel>
              </rss> 


              Delete

              Custom elements

              <pp:paid> in the example above uses a custom namespace. We can support any custom namespaces, so while there is an example of all elements above, the element names are interchangeable as long as they are valid and use a namespace.



              rss pugpig edition feed collection timeline

              Was this article helpful?

              Yes
              No
              Give feedback about this article

              Related Articles

              • Pugpig Bolt RSS Overview
              • RSS Inline Elements
              • Detailed Express RSS Feed Mapping
              • Bolt Timeline Specific RSS Features
              • Monitoring RSS feed processing
              pugpig logo white
              Navigation
              • Products
              • Customers
              • News
              • Podcast
              Contact
              • Contact us
              • LinkedIn
              • Twitter
              Technical Support
              • Status Page
              • Documentation
              • Customer Support
              Corporate
              • Company
              • Jobs
              • Privacy Policy

              © Kaldor Ltd. 2022

              Powered by Pugpig


              Knowledge Base Software powered by Helpjuice

              Expand