arch-rss-notify

Desktop notifications when Arch Linux packages have updates.

Monitors the core, extra, and multilib RSS feeds and notifies you when an installed package has a newer version.

Requirements

• Arch Linux
• notify-send (libnotify)
• D-Bus session bus (desktop environment)
• Go 1.26+ (source builds only - not needed for AUR install)

Installation

From AUR (recommended)

yay -S arch-rss-notify
# or
paru -S arch-rss-notify

Or manually:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/arch-rss-notify.git
cd arch-rss-notify
makepkg -si

systemd user service

For AUR installs, the post-install message shows the enable command. Place .env at ~/.config/rss-notify/.env first (see Configuration).

For source builds, copy the service file and enable manually:

cp rss-notify.service ~/.config/systemd/user/
systemctl --user enable --now rss-notify.service

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/Mohabdo21/arch-rss-notify.git
cd arch-rss-notify

make build          # bin/rss_notify
make build-static   # fully static amd64 binary
make test           # run tests

Configuration

Settings are loaded from .env (working directory) and overridden by CLI flags.

Install method	.env location
AUR (systemd)	~/.config/rss-notify/.env
AUR (manual)	working directory, or use --interval / --state flags
Local build	next to the binary, or project root

An example .env is provided in the repository.

Variable	Default	Description
RSS_URL	core, extra, multilib feeds (comma-separated)	Feed URLs
CHECK_INTERVAL	10m	Poll interval
STATE_FILE	~/.local/share/rss-notifier/state.json	State file path
FETCH_RETRIES	2	Max retries/feed
FETCH_BACKOFF	1s	Initial backoff

CLI flags:

--interval   check interval (e.g. "10m", "30s")
--state      path to state JSON file

Usage

# AUR install
rss-notify

# Local build
./rss_notify

Runs until Ctrl+C. Checks feeds every 10 minutes (or configured interval) and sends notify-send notifications for updates.