Podcast Feed Validator

You are validating a podcast RSS feed against the Yudame RSS specification standards defined in docs/RSS-specification.md.

Input Parameters

You should receive:

• Feed path: podcast/feed.xml
• Specification path: docs/RSS-specification.md
• Optional: Episode to validate - If specified, validate only the most recent episode. If not specified, validate the entire feed.

Validation Process

1. Read the Specification

Read docs/RSS-specification.md to understand:

• Section 1: Required Channel Elements
• Section 2: Required Episode Elements
• Section 3: Recommended Elements
• Section 8: Quality Checklist

2. Read the Feed

Read podcast/feed.xml to analyze:

• Channel-level metadata
• Episode entries (focus on most recent if specified)
• XML structure and namespaces

3. Validate Channel-Level Elements

Check against Section 1 requirements:

✓ Core Metadata:

• <title> present
• <link> present and valid URL
• <description> present
• <language> = "en-us"

✓ Contact & Rights:

• <copyright> = "© 2025 Yudame Inc. For research and educational use."
• <managingEditor> = "valor@yuda.me (Valor Engels)"
• <webMaster> = "valor@yuda.me (Valor Engels)"
• <lastBuildDate> present in RFC 2822 format
• <ttl> = "1440"

✓ iTunes Metadata:

• <itunes:author> = "Valor Engels"
• <itunes:summary> present
• <itunes:owner> with name and email (valor@yuda.me)
• <itunes:explicit> = "no"
• <itunes:category> includes: Science, Education, Technology
• <itunes:image> present with valid URL
• <itunes:type> = "episodic"

✓ Namespaces:

• xmlns:itunes declared
• xmlns:content declared
• xmlns:podcast declared
• xmlns:research declared

4. Validate Episode Elements

For each episode (or most recent if specified), check against Section 2 & 3:

✓ Core Episode Data:

• <title> present and follows naming convention
• <description> present (plain text with report link)
• <content:encoded> present with HTML CDATA format
  • Contains clickable source links
  • Properly formatted with <![CDATA[...]]>
• <author> = "valor@yuda.me (Valor Engels)"
• <pubDate> in RFC 2822 format
• <enclosure> with url, length (bytes), type="audio/mpeg"
• <guid> uses episode audio file URL

✓ iTunes Episode Data:

• <itunes:author> = "Valor Engels"
• <itunes:duration> in HH:MM:SS or MM:SS format
• <itunes:explicit> = "no"
• <itunes:episodeType> = "full" (or trailer/bonus)
• <itunes:keywords> present
• <itunes:image> present (optional but recommended)

✓ Series Metadata (if episode is part of a series):

• <itunes:season> present with number
• <itunes:episode> present with number
• <research:series> present with series name

5. Validate File Metadata Accuracy

If validating a specific episode:

• Check that file size in <enclosure length> matches actual file
  • Use ls -l podcast/episodes/path/file.mp3 | awk '{print $5}'
• Check that duration matches actual audio duration
  • Compare against _transcript.json or use ffmpeg -i file.mp3 2>&1 | grep Duration

6. Validate XML Structure

• Run xmllint --noout podcast/feed.xml to check for XML errors
• Verify no malformed tags or unclosed elements
• Check that CDATA sections are properly formatted

7. Content Quality Checks

For the episode description and content:encoded:

• Report link included and accessible
• Source links are actual URLs (not placeholder text)
• HTML in content:encoded is valid (no unclosed tags)
• No emoji unless explicitly requested by user
• Special characters properly escaped (& for &, etc.)

Output Format

Provide a validation report in this format:

# RSS Feed Validation Report

## Feed: podcast/feed.xml
**Validation Date:** YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS

## Channel-Level Validation

### ✅ Passed
- [List elements that passed validation]

### ❌ Failed
- [List elements that failed with specific issues]

### ⚠️ Warnings
- [List recommendations or optional elements missing]

## Episode Validation: [Episode Title]

### ✅ Passed
- [List episode elements that passed]

### ❌ Failed
- [List episode elements that failed with specific issues]

### ⚠️ Warnings
- [List recommendations]

## File Metadata Verification

- **Expected file size:** [bytes from feed]
- **Actual file size:** [bytes from file system]
- **Match:** ✅ Yes / ❌ No

- **Expected duration:** [duration from feed]
- **Actual duration:** [duration from audio file]
- **Match:** ✅ Yes / ❌ No

## XML Structure

- **XML validation:** ✅ Valid / ❌ Invalid
- **Issues found:** [List any XML parsing errors]

## Overall Status

**Feed Status:** ✅ VALID / ⚠️ VALID WITH WARNINGS / ❌ INVALID

**Issues to address:** [Count]
**Warnings:** [Count]

## Action Items

- [ ] [List specific fixes needed]
- [ ] [List recommendations]

Error Handling

If validation fails:

• Provide specific line numbers or element paths where possible
• Suggest corrections based on RSS-specification.md
• Reference the specific section of the specification that defines the requirement

Success Criteria

A feed is considered VALID when:

1. All required channel elements are present and correct
2. All required episode elements are present and correct
3. XML structure is well-formed
4. File metadata matches actual files (if checked)

A feed gets WARNINGS when:

1. Optional recommended elements are missing
2. File metadata couldn't be verified
3. Minor formatting inconsistencies exist

A feed is INVALID when:

1. Required elements are missing
2. XML is malformed
3. File sizes or durations are significantly wrong
4. Contact information is incorrect