Skip to content

FAQ

What RSS readers are supported?

minizen supports Miniflux only — either the hosted version at reader.miniflux.app or a self-hosted instance.

Which AI providers and models work?

minizen uses pydantic-ai under the hood, so any provider it supports will work. Tested providers:

  • Anthropic — set model = "anthropic:claude-haiku-4-5" and provide ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
  • OpenAI — set model = "openai:gpt-4o-mini" and provide OPENAI_API_KEY

See the Configuration reference for the full list of env vars.

Can I use a non-Gmail SMTP server?

Yes. minizen uses standard STARTTLS SMTP. Set smtp_host, smtp_port, MINIZEN_EMAIL_USERNAME, and MINIZEN_EMAIL_PASSWORD for any SMTP provider (Fastmail, Outlook, Mailgun, Postmark, etc.).

What happens if there are no recent articles?

minizen exits cleanly with a log message — no email is sent.

How do I test the digest without sending a real email?

Three commands let you run progressively more of the pipeline:

# Fetch articles only — no AI, no email
minizen digest fetch

# Generate the digest in your terminal — no email sent
minizen digest preview

# Send to your inbox as a test
minizen digest send-test

Add --dry-run to skip all external side-effects (useful in CI or scripting).

The digest didn't arrive — what should I check?

  1. Run minizen config validate to check your settings.
  2. Run minizen digest fetch to confirm articles are being fetched from Miniflux.
  3. Check your spam or junk folder.
  4. For Gmail: verify your App Password is correct and 2-Step Verification is enabled.
  5. Try minizen digest send-test and watch the logs for SMTP errors.