smartformat-validate-action

GitHub Action to validate RSS feeds against the SmartNews SmartFormat v2.1 specification.

Usage

- uses: blavity/smartformat-validate-action@v1
  with:
    feed_urls: '["https://example.com/rss.xml", "https://example.com/tech/rss.xml"]'

Inputs

Input	Required	Default	Description
feed_urls	yes		JSON array of RSS feed URLs to validate
min_item_count	no	5	Minimum number of <item> elements required per feed
max_age_hours	no	48	Max hours since <lastBuildDate> before a staleness warning. Set to 0 to disable.
require_snf_namespace	no	true	Require xmlns:snf="http://www.smartnews.be/snf" namespace declaration

Outputs

Output	Description
result	pass or fail
feeds_passed	Number of feeds that passed all hard checks
feeds_failed	Number of feeds that failed one or more hard checks

What gets validated

Hard failures (action exits non-zero)

Channel level:

• <title>, <link>, <description> present

Item level (per item):

• <title>, <link>, <guid>, <pubDate> present
• <content:encoded> present
• <media:thumbnail> present (required per SmartFormat v2.1 spec)

Feed level:

• Item count ≥ min_item_count
• snf: namespace declared (when require_snf_namespace: true)

Warnings (surfaced in step summary, do not fail)

• <lastBuildDate> older than max_age_hours
• <snf:logo> absent from channel (recommended for branding)
• Item <description> absent (recommended per spec)

Step summary

Each run writes a Markdown table to $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY with per-feed pass/fail status and a direct link to the SmartNews Validator for each URL.

Example — post-deploy smoke test

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-24.04
    steps:
      - name: Deploy
        run: echo "deploy step here"

  rss-smoke-test:
    needs: deploy
    runs-on: ubuntu-24.04
    steps:
      - uses: blavity/smartformat-validate-action@v1
        with:
          feed_urls: '["https://example.com/rss.xml", "https://example.com/tech/rss.xml"]'

Versioning

Pin to a major tag (@v1) for stability. See releases for the changelog.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Trademarks

SmartNews and SmartFormat are trademarks or registered trademarks of SmartNews, Inc. Blavity, Inc. is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by SmartNews, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.