WyrmRSS is a self-hosted RSS reader by a software engineer, built for fun and to escape algorithms. It features inline YouTube playback with filters to skip Shorts and live streams, plus built-in webhook support. The project is a work-in-progress, with the backend mostly hand-written and LLM assistance used for boilerplate, tests, and frontend code.
Background
Show HN is a section on Hacker News where makers share side projects for feedback — a big deal in tech circles.
- RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an old open-web standard for subscribing to blogs, news sites, podcasts, YouTube channels without an algorithm deciding what you see. RSS readers gather everything into one feed.
- Self-hosted means you run the software on your own machine rather than using a service like Feedly. Gives full control but requires technical skill.
- Inline YouTube and Shorts filters: most RSS readers show video links as plain links; this one embeds the video directly and can skip YouTube Shorts (its TikTok-style vertical videos) — letting you watch without YouTube's algorithmic suggestions.
- Webhooks let the reader push notifications to other apps (chat, read-later services) — a core design choice rather than an afterthought.
- The AI disclosure matters because the software community is divided on how much LLM-generated code is acceptable, especially for projects shared on Show HN.