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Automating Content Curation with n8n – Posting New RSS Articles to Slack Channels

I’ve recently published a lightweight n8n workflow aimed at automating the discovery and sharing of articles from curated RSS feeds. You can view or use the live template on n8n Community.

🤔 Why I Built This

Every morning, I was spending a chunk of time manually scanning through a handful of reputable industry sources—looking for new articles, insights, or announcements. While this habit kept me informed, it was repetitive, and frankly, not the best use of time.

I wanted to flip the model: instead of me chasing the news, I wanted the news to come to me.

So I built this workflow to pull in the latest articles automatically, filter out what I’ve already seen, and post the new ones into a dedicated Slack channel. Now, I start my day by checking one place, getting a consolidated feed of what’s new, and moving on. No tabs. No clutter. No wasted time.

🌐 A Brief Intro to n8n

n8n is an open-source workflow automation platform that connects various apps and services through a visual interface. Think of it as programmable automation with built-in support for branching, scheduling, external APIs, and credentials management—all without needing to write full-blown applications.

It has native integrations for Google Sheets, Slack, RSS feeds, and a long list of other tools, making it ideal for these types of "glue logic" automations.

Screenshot of n8n Workflow

🔄 High-Level Workflow Steps

Here’s how the automation works:

  1. Trigger: A Cron node kicks off the workflow daily (default is 7 AM).
  2. Read Feed List: A Google Sheets node reads a list of RSS feed URLs.
  3. Retrieve Articles: Each feed is fetched for the latest articles.
  4. Check for Duplicates: Article links are compared against a list of previously posted items.
  5. Filter & Format: Unseen articles are formatted for readability.
  6. Post to Slack: New articles are sent to a Slack channel.
  7. Log Posts: Shared articles are logged in Google Sheets for future comparison.

🛠️ Prerequisites & Setup

You’ll need the following to get started:

  • Google Sheets credentials in n8n (OAuth2)
  • Slack credentials in n8n (OAuth2)
  • A Google Sheet with:
    • A Feeds tab (title, link)
    • A Posted Articles tab (title, link, pubDate)
  • The workflow JSON (linked above) with your:
    • Sheet ID via variable or hardcoded
    • Slack channel ID

Once configured and tested, schedule the Cron node and let it run.

🎯 Who This Is For

This is especially useful if you:

  • Curate daily or weekly industry updates
  • Monitor multiple sources but want a single view
  • Share news internally with your team
  • Prefer lightweight, extendable automations over complex platforms

🛡️ What I Learned

A few reflections while building this:

  • Google Sheets works well as a simple external database.
  • n8n offers just enough scripting support to stay flexible.
  • Automation works best when you remove yourself from the middle of the task entirely.

Check out the workflow on n8n.io