Track Blog and RSS Updates with Blogwatcher-cli in Hermes Agent

Blogwatcher is a bundled skill in Hermes Agent that lets you monitor blogs and RSS/Atom feeds from the command line. You would reach for it when you need to keep up with a set of publications without opening a feed reader app, or when you want to automate feed checking as part of a larger research pipeline. It handles feed discovery, HTML scraping fallback, OPML import, and read/unread tracking, all through a single binary called blogwatcher-cli.

What it does

Blogwatcher tracks updates from blogs and feeds you care about. You add a blog by URL, and it tries to find the RSS or Atom feed automatically. If that fails, you can point it at a specific feed URL or tell it to scrape the page HTML for article links. It stores articles in a local SQLite database, marks new ones as unread, and lets you list, filter, and manage them. The tool is designed for headless or scripted use, so it fits naturally into an agent workflow where you want to check for new content on a schedule.

Before you start

Blogwatcher is installed by default with Hermes Agent. You can also install it standalone. The source lists these installation methods:

• Go: go install github.com/JulienTant/blogwatcher-cli/cmd/blogwatcher-cli@latest
• Docker: docker run --rm -v blogwatcher-cli:/data ghcr.io/julientant/blogwatcher-cli
• Binary (Linux amd64): curl -sL https://github.com/JulienTant/blogwatcher-cli/releases/latest/download/blogwatcher-cli_linux_amd64.tar.gz | tar xz -C /usr/local/bin blogwatcher-cli
• Binary (Linux arm64): curl -sL https://github.com/JulienTant/blogwatcher-cli/releases/latest/download/blogwatcher-cli_linux_arm64.tar.gz | tar xz -C /usr/local/bin blogwatcher-cli
• Binary (macOS Apple Silicon): curl -sL https://github.com/JulienTant/blogwatcher-cli/releases/latest/download/blogwatcher-cli_darwin_arm64.tar.gz | tar xz -C /usr/local/bin blogwatcher-cli
• Binary (macOS Intel): curl -sL https://github.com/JulienTant/blogwatcher-cli/releases/latest/download/blogwatcher-cli_darwin_amd64.tar.gz | tar xz -C /usr/local/bin blogwatcher-cli

All releases: https://github.com/JulienTant/blogwatcher-cli/releases

Docker with persistent storage

By default the database lives at ~/.blogwatcher-cli/blogwatcher-cli.db. In Docker this is lost on container restart. Use BLOGWATCHER_DB or a volume mount to persist it:

# Named volume (simplest)
docker run --rm -v blogwatcher-cli:/data -e BLOGWATCHER_DB=/data/blogwatcher-cli.db ghcr.io/julientant/blogwatcher-cli scan

# Host bind mount
docker run --rm -v /path/on/host:/data -e BLOGWATCHER_DB=/data/blogwatcher-cli.db ghcr.io/julientant/blogwatcher-cli scan

Migrating from the original blogwatcher

If upgrading from Hyaxia/blogwatcher, move your database:

mv ~/.blogwatcher/blogwatcher.db ~/.blogwatcher-cli/blogwatcher-cli.db

The binary name changed from blogwatcher to blogwatcher-cli.

Common Commands

Managing blogs

• Add a blog: blogwatcher-cli add "My Blog" https://example.com
• Add with explicit feed: blogwatcher-cli add "My Blog" https://example.com --feed-url https://example.com/feed.xml
• Add with HTML scraping: blogwatcher-cli add "My Blog" https://example.com --scrape-selector "article h2 a"
• List tracked blogs: blogwatcher-cli blogs
• Remove a blog: blogwatcher-cli remove "My Blog" --yes
• Import from OPML: blogwatcher-cli import subscriptions.opml

Scanning and reading

• Scan all blogs: blogwatcher-cli scan
• Scan one blog: blogwatcher-cli scan "My Blog"
• List unread articles: blogwatcher-cli articles
• List all articles: blogwatcher-cli articles --all
• Filter by blog: blogwatcher-cli articles --blog "My Blog"
• Filter by category: blogwatcher-cli articles --category "Engineering"
• Mark article read: blogwatcher-cli read 1
• Mark article unread: blogwatcher-cli unread 1
• Mark all read: blogwatcher-cli read-all
• Mark all read for a blog: blogwatcher-cli read-all --blog "My Blog" --yes

Environment Variables

All flags can be set via environment variables with the BLOGWATCHER_ prefix:

Variable	Description
BLOGWATCHER_DB	Path to SQLite database file
BLOGWATCHER_WORKERS	Number of concurrent scan workers (default: 8)
BLOGWATCHER_SILENT	Only output "scan done" when scanning
BLOGWATCHER_YES	Skip confirmation prompts
BLOGWATCHER_CATEGORY	Default filter for articles by category

Example Output

$ blogwatcher-cli blogs
Tracked blogs (1):

  xkcd
    URL: https://xkcd.com
    Feed: https://xkcd.com/atom.xml
    Last scanned: 2026-04-03 10:30

$ blogwatcher-cli scan
Scanning 1 blog(s)...

  xkcd
    Source: RSS | Found: 4 | New: 4

Found 4 new article(s) total!

$ blogwatcher-cli articles
Unread articles (2):

  [1] [new] Barrel - Part 13
       Blog: xkcd
       URL: https://xkcd.com/3095/
       Published: 2026-04-02
       Categories: Comics, Science

  [2] [new] Volcano Fact
       Blog: xkcd
       URL: https://xkcd.com/3094/
       Published: 2026-04-01
       Categories: Comics

Notes

• Auto-discovers RSS/Atom feeds from blog homepages when no --feed-url is provided.
• Falls back to HTML scraping if RSS fails and --scrape-selector is configured.
• Categories from RSS/Atom feeds are stored and can be used to filter articles.
• Import blogs in bulk from OPML files exported by Feedly, Inoreader, NewsBlur, etc.
• Database stored at ~/.blogwatcher-cli/blogwatcher-cli.db by default (override with --db or BLOGWATCHER_DB).
• Use blogwatcher-cli --help to discover all flags and options.