Signal a live/streaming episode in a podcast RSS feed using podcast:liveItem
domain: podcasting2.org · 6 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Steps
Declare xmlns:podcast="https://podcastindex.org/namespace/1.0" on <rss>, then add <podcast:liveItem> as a child of <channel> (same level as a normal <item>).
Set the required status attribute to one of pending, live, or ended.
Set the required start attribute (ISO8601 timestamp) and recommended end attribute for the intended stream window.
Include normal item-style children (<title>, <description>, <guid>, etc.) — a changed <guid> should be treated by apps as a new stream.
Include both <podcast:alternateEnclosure> (to declare stream transport/codec explicitly) and a fallback <enclosure>, favoring widely-supported formats.
Add at least one required <podcast:contentLink> child linking to an HTML fallback page, and send a Podping notification when the stream transitions to live.
Known gotchas
status is the canonical signal that a stream has actually started — start/end timestamps are only approximations and apps are told not to rely on them alone.
<podcast:contentLink> is required by spec, but podcasting2.org's own feature-support tracker currently lists very limited app/hosting-tool support for liveItem overall.
Choosing a non-mainstream streaming codec/protocol will exclude many podcast apps from playing the content.
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