Atom feeds

2025-03-26

The format for Atom feeds is specified in RFC 4287.

Structure

An Atom feed is an XML document with a single feed element as the root.

The items in the feed are represented with /feed/entry elements. These come after the metadata children.

Typical metadata provided as children of feed:

/feed/author [1..*] – see Author below
/feed/id [1]
/feed/link with attribute rel="self" [0..1]
- the preferred URI for retrieving this feed; recommended.
/feed/title [1]
/feed/updated [1]

Optional:

/feed/category [0..*]
/feed/contributor [0..*]
/feed/generator [0..1]
/feed/icon [0..1]
/feed/logo [0..1]
/feed/link with attribute rel="alternate"
- at most 1 per (type × hreflang) combination
/feed/rights [0..1]
/feed/subtitle [0..1]

Typical metadata provided as children of entry:

Optional:

/feed/entry/link with attributes rel="alternate" type="text/html"
/feed/entry/link with attributes rel="enclosure" type="audio/mpeg"
/feed/entry/published
/feed/entry/subtitle
/feed/entry/author – see Author below
/feed/entry/contributor
/feed/entry/content with attr type="xhtml"
- Its child should be a <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">.
- Set the xml:base="https://..." attr on content to resolve relative links.
- Set the xml:lang="en" attr on content

The author element can be used in feed or entry. Its children may be: