Feeds

Feeds are the glue between DBLSQD and your software and/or website. They contain information about your Application, available Releases and Artifacts.

You can think of them as your Application’s equivalent to an RSS feed: You can subscribe to them in order to keep up with the latest version of your software or display a changelog.

Feed URLs

All Feeds are publicly accessible and can be retrieved with a simple GET request:

https://feeds.dblsqd.com/:app_token/:channel/:os/:arch/[:feed_type]

You can get the base URL for your Application which contains a unique app_token with the following CLI tool command:

$ dblsqd app $app_name
> Feeds available at https://feeds.dblsqd.com/$app_token/

Append channel, operating system and architecture names as well as Feed type (if required) in order to construct the final URL.

Artifact Types

In the previous chapter, we discussed the possibility of setting the Type of an Artifact when uploading it.

Every Feed format presents certain Artifact Type(s) by default. This can be overridden by specifying one or multiple (comma-separated) Artifact Types with the t query parameter:

https://feeds.dblsqd.com/:app_token/:os/:arch/[:feed_type]?t=$artifact_type

You could for example set up a Feed that presents your Application as an .exe installer (uploaded using the default standalone Type) and another Feed that contains .zip archives of your Releases (created with a custom Type named portable):

https://feeds.dblsqd.com/:app_token/stable/win/x86_64
https://feeds.dblsqd.com/:app_token/stable/win/x86_64?t=portable

Feed Formats

DBLSQD currently offers four different Feeds formats.

JSON

JSON Feeds are the default when no other Feed format is specified in the Feed URL.

Here is an example Feed retrieved for an Application with only one Release:

{
   "app_name":"OctaPlay",
   "releases":[
      {
         "version":"1.0.0",
         "changelog":"Here goes the changelog.",
         "download":{
            "url":"https://octaplay.org/dl/OctaPlay-1.0.0.dmg",
            "size":1048576,
            "md5":"b6d8[…]3e2c",
            "sha1":"3b71[…]b5a3",
            "sha256":"30e1[…]fcb58",
            "sparkle_signature":"6dc2[…]750a",
            "signature":"a567[…]3915"
         }
      }
   ],
}

Read more about the JSON Feed format here.

Appcast/XML

The Appcast/XML format is based on the RSS standard and can be used when XML is more convenient than JSON or to integrate with the Sparkle framework.

Read more about the Appcast/XML format here.

Squirrel.Mac & Squirrel.Windows

The squirrel.mac and squirrel.windows Feeds are quite different from the JSON and Appcast/XML Feeds because of their narrower scope: Their main purpose is to be consumed by the Squirrel updating framework.

Read more about the Squirrel Feed formats in the documentation for Squirrel.Mac and Squirrel.Windows.