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Invisible link to canonical for Microformats Publish posts in the built-in feeds

Publish posts in the built-in feeds

Include articles and share a subscription address

Use this guide on an existing site to let readers subscribe in a feed reader. The theme supplies Atom at /atom.xml and RSS 2.0 at /rss.xml; you do not need to install jekyll-feed for these addresses.

Include your posts

In _config.yml, find the existing defaults list. For an existing scope with path: "" and type: posts, add include_on_feed: true under its values, preserving the other values. If that scope is missing, append the following list item under defaults. Create the complete section only if it is absent:

defaults:
  - scope:
      path: ""
      type: posts
    values:
      include_on_feed: true

Use the YAML boolean true, without quotes. An explicit value in a post’s front matter takes precedence over the default. To keep a particular post out, set include_on_feed: false in its existing front matter.

The built-in feeds select posts and collection documents with include_on_feed: true and a date. Posts get their date from the filename; for a collection document, first ensure its existing entry under collections in _config.yml has output: true so its article URL is published. Preserve the other collection settings. Then set date explicitly in its front matter to control its publication date and ordering. Jekyll 4 can infer a date when none is set; do not rely on that behavior across Jekyll versions. An ordinary standalone page outside a collection is not selected just by adding these settings. See the field reference.

Preserve author names and profiles

In v2.2.1 development, each feed entry uses its document’s author mapping when present, otherwise the site’s author settings in _config.yml. RSS preserves known names as dc:creator; it does not invent email addresses. Atom uses the selected author’s url before the first HTTP(S) URL in that author’s links. If neither exists, Atom omits the profile URI. A guest never inherits the site author’s name, URL or links. The Atom feed’s own author uses the site settings with the same URL fallback. Set a guest’s author.name and author.url in the article’s existing front matter to identify them explicitly. Site-relative profile URLs such as /about/ use the site’s url and baseurl. Hiding the author card with show_author: false does not remove feed authors.

Publish and share the address

Commit to the publishing branch, wait for Actions to succeed and open /atom.xml on your published site, including its repository path if it has one: for example, https://example.github.io/my-blog/atom.xml. Check /rss.xml too. Open the feed in a feed reader and confirm that a recent, published post appears and its link opens the expected article. A browser may display XML or download the file; that alone is not a failure.

Follow Edit footer links to add a labelled subscription link using url: /atom.xml or url: /rss.xml. Keep other footer links and omit the repository prefix in this setting; the theme adds baseurl.

If a post is missing, check its explicit include_on_feed value and date, any more-specific defaults, and whether the publishing build included it. Use Find missing changes before changing feed addresses. If a collection entry appears but its article returns 404, check that the collection has output: true, rebuild, and open that article URL directly. Opting a document into the feed does not enable collection output. If a feed returns 404, check the URL, latest deployment and any local file that overrides the theme’s feed asset.

Already have subscribers at /feed.xml? Keep that address working; use Keep a jekyll-feed subscription address instead of silently switching readers to another URL.

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