feat(route/substack): authenticated post bodies and Notes feed
Author: vizmoeCreated Jul 22, 2026Updated Jul 22, 2026
LabelsRSS enhancement
What feature is it?
Enhance the existing Substack integration with optional authenticated post retrieval and a Notes route:
- Let
/substack/subscribe/:userfetch each post from Substack's post API so the feed contains the body available to the requester. - Add an optional
SUBSTACK_COOKIEfor trusted self-hosted instances. Paid bodies must only be returned when that Substack account already has access. - Add
/substack/notes/:userto expose Notes/activity published by the publication's primary author, because the publication/feedcontains posts but not Notes. - Keep caches separated by authentication context.
This is authenticated access, not a paywall bypass.
What problem does this feature solve?
Substack's native publication feed may contain only a preview for paid posts and does not include the author's Notes. As a result, the current RSSHub route cannot provide the complete content visible to a logged-in subscriber and cannot subscribe to publication Notes at all.
Additional description
One possible implementation flow is:
- Parse the publication feed for post metadata.
- Fetch
/api/v1/posts/:slugwith the optional authenticated session and build the item from the returned post body. - Resolve the publication's primary profile, then read the profile activity feed filtered to Notes for
/substack/notes/:user. - Hash the authentication context into cache keys so anonymous previews cannot poison authenticated results.
- Fall back to the native feed item if an individual post API request fails.
Example publication: https://norsemanmarkettiming.substack.com/.
The existing Substack issues and PRs found in search concern XML parsing or trending posts, not authenticated bodies or Notes.
This is not a duplicated feature request or new RSS proposal
- I have searched existing issues to ensure this feature has not already been requested and this is not a new RSS proposal.
Source: DIYgod/RSSHub