Pod Poster

Inspiration

I just learned about the devvit platform in January after becoming a mod of a large sub. I was inspired after seeing the basketball scoreboard app to create an app of my own. I eventually was able to ship Pod Poster after that.

What it does

It polls an RSS feed looking for updates. When there is an update, it posts the episode description (converted from html to markdown) as a self post to the installed subreddit. There is a customizable link at the bottom of the post to direct individuals to a splash page to explore that podcast more.

How we built it

Using Devvit documentation with Opencode using Gemini/Google AI Studio, later converting to Claude code.

Challenges we ran into

Devvit requires any externally accessed URL's to be approved by reddit. Their requirements state that links are much more likely to be approved with a subdomain. I was able to find subdomains for many of the major podcast hosting providers and reddit was able to approve them.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

While I was able to get the domain api.spreaker.com approved, the actual RSS resides at spreaker.com. I was able to build logic in specifically for this domain so that the app can access the episode through the approved domain. I was also able to find and successfully test subdomains for Simplecasts which is one of the major hosting providers in the space.

What we learned

How RSS is structured and how devvit apps access external sources

What's next for Pod Poster

The QoL for the app is in a suitable place, but I want to improve the post visuals. I'd like to adapt it to a lightweight react app that lives natively in a reddit post.

Built With

• claude
• gemini
• node.js
• opencode
• typescript