Jekyll JSON Feed Templates is a set of Liquid template files that render Jekyll blog posts as JSON feeds conforming to the JSONFeed specification, with five feed variants for recent posts, categories, tags, link posts, and articles. It is the JSON counterpart to the jekyll-rss-feeds project on GitHub.
What is Jekyll JSON Feed Templates?
Jekyll JSON Feed Templates is a collection of five ready-to-use Liquid templates for Jekyll static sites. Each template takes a Jekyll blog's posts and outputs a JSON file to the generated _site folder, following the JSONFeed spec at jsonfeed.org. The templates rely on custom _config.yml variables — name, description, url, and optional author — so the feed title, description, and site URL come from site configuration rather than hardcoded values.
Key Features
- feed.json — Renders the 10 most recent posts into a JSON feed at the root of the generated site.
- feed.category.json — Filters posts by a specific category, with the example template set to a "miscellaneous" category.
- feed.tag.json — Filters posts by a specific tag, with the example template set to a "jekyll" tag.
- feed.links.json — Includes only posts that have a
linkvariable in their YAML front matter, making it a linked-list feed. - feed.articles.json — Includes only posts that do not link to external sites, the inverse of feed.links.json.
- Config-variable support — Uses
{{ site.name }},{{ site.description }},{{ site.url }}, and{{ site.author }}from _config.yml to populate feed metadata. - JSONFeed spec compliance — Outputs are formatted according to the JSONFeed specification, making them readable by JSON-feed aggregators.
Who is it for?
This template set is aimed at Jekyll bloggers who want to expose their content as JSON feeds for feed readers, web services, or custom front ends. Bloggers who publish linked posts or curated link lists will find feed.links.json especially useful, and those who want to segment content by category or tag can use feed.category.json and feed.tag.json without writing custom Liquid.
What can you do with Jekyll JSON Feed Templates?
- Jekyll bloggers: Serve a JSON feed of your 10 latest posts at feed.json so subscribers using JSON-capable readers can follow your site.
- Link-post publishers: Use feed.links.json to make a dedicated feed of posts that reference external URLs, keeping article content separate.
- Category-based content teams: Customize feed.category.json for each category to offer topic-specific JSON subscriptions.
- Static site developers: Copy and modify any of the templates to experiment with JSON output from Jekyll without building a plugin.
How does Jekyll JSON Feed Templates work?
Set up is straightforward. First, add the name, description, url, and author variables to your _config.yml. Next, copy one of the template files (such as feed.json) into the root directory of your Jekyll blog. Finally, run the jekyll command to build the site; the generated _site folder will contain a properly formatted feed at feed.json.
