EnviroLink AI News Aggregator self-updates

Automated WordPress plugin that fetches environmental news from RSS feeds, rewrites content using Anthropic's Claude AI, and publishes to your WordPress site.

Features

✅ RSS Feed Management - Add, remove, enable/disable news sources through admin interface ✅ AI-Powered Rewriting - Uses Claude to create unique, engaging summaries ✅ Professional Ontology Tagging - IPTC Media Topics + UN SDG-based taxonomy ✅ Automatic Publishing - Creates WordPress posts automatically ✅ Hourly Updates - Runs automatically via WordPress cron ✅ Duplicate Detection - Prevents re-importing the same articles ✅ Daily Roundups - AI-generated editorial summaries with Pexels imagery ✅ Manual Trigger - Run the aggregator on-demand from admin panel ✅ Source Attribution - Stores original source URL and title as post metadata

Requirements

• WordPress 5.0 or higher
• PHP 7.4 or higher
• Anthropic API key (Get one here)
• Active internet connection for API calls

Installation

Step 1: Prepare the Plugin

Create a ZIP file for WordPress upload:

cd envirolink-ai-aggregator
zip -r ../envirolink-ai-aggregator.zip .

Step 2: Install in WordPress

Upload via WordPress Dashboard:

1. Log into your WordPress admin panel at https://envirolink.org/wp-admin
2. Go to Plugins → Add New Plugin
3. Click Upload Plugin button at the top
4. Click Choose File and select envirolink-ai-aggregator.zip
5. Click Install Now
6. Click Activate Plugin

Step 3: Configure the Plugin

1. In WordPress admin, find EnviroLink News in the left sidebar
2. Click it to open the settings page

Enter Your API Key

1. Go to the Settings tab
2. Paste your Anthropic API key into the "Anthropic API Key" field
3. Select a default category for posts (optional)
4. Choose post status (Publish for automatic posting or Draft to review first)
5. Click Save Settings

Manage RSS Feeds

1. Go to the RSS Feeds tab
2. The Mongabay feed is pre-configured
3. To add more feeds:
   • Enter a Feed Name (e.g., "The Guardian")
   • Enter the RSS Feed URL (e.g., https://www.theguardian.com/environment/rss)
   • Click Add Feed

Suggested Environmental RSS Feeds:

• Mongabay: https://news.mongabay.com/feed/ (pre-configured)
• The Guardian Environment: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/rss
• Grist: https://grist.org/feed/
• EcoWatch: https://www.ecowatch.com/feed
• Yale Environment 360: https://e360.yale.edu/feed
• Carbon Brief: https://www.carbonbrief.org/feed/

Step 4: Test It!

1. Return to the main EnviroLink News page
2. Verify the System Status shows:
   • ✓ API Key: Configured
   • Active Feeds: 1 or more
3. Click Run Aggregator Now button
4. Wait 30-60 seconds for processing
5. Go to Posts in WordPress to see your new articles!

How It Works

Automatic Hourly Process

Every hour, the plugin automatically:

1. Fetches up to 10 recent articles from each enabled RSS feed
2. Checks if each article has already been imported (prevents duplicates)
3. Sends the original content to Claude AI
4. Receives a rewritten headline and summary
5. Creates a new WordPress post
6. Stores the original source URL as metadata

AI Rewriting

Claude AI is prompted to:

• Create a compelling new headline (max 80 characters)
• Write a 200-300 word summary (2-4 paragraphs)
• Maintain all factual accuracy
• Use clear, engaging language for general audiences
• Preserve journalistic integrity

Environmental News Ontology

What Is It?

The plugin includes a professional taxonomy system based on:

• IPTC Media Topics - International news industry standards
• UN Sustainable Development Goals - 17 global goals for environmental impact

This ensures your articles have clean, consistent, professional tags instead of junk tags like "Homepage", "Breaking News", or "World".

The 41-Topic Taxonomy

Level 0: Environment

Level 1 (Main Categories):

• Climate Change
• Conservation
• Environmental Pollution
• Natural Resources
• Renewable Energy
• Sustainability
• Environmental Justice
• Natural Disasters

Level 2 (Subcategories):

• Climate: Carbon Emissions, Climate Adaptation, Climate Mitigation, Sea Level Rise
• Conservation: Endangered Species, Wildlife Protection, Biodiversity, Habitat Protection, Deforestation
• Pollution: Air, Water, Soil, Noise, Light, Plastic
• Resources: Water, Forest, Mineral, Ocean
• Renewables: Solar, Wind, Hydroelectric, Geothermal, Biomass
• Plus: Circular Economy, Green Technology, Environmental Policy, Ecosystem Services
• Disasters: Drought, Flood, Wildfire, Hurricane

Setup (One-Time)

1. Go to EnviroLink News → Ontology tab
2. Click "Seed Ontology Database" button
3. Wait for confirmation: "✓ Seeded (41 topics)"
4. Go to Settings tab
5. Check "Enable ontology-based tag filtering"
6. Click Save Settings

Re-tag Existing Posts

After enabling ontology:

1. Go to Ontology tab
2. Click "Re-tag All Existing Posts" button
3. Wait for completion: "Updated X articles, Y roundups, skipped Z"

This cleans up ALL past articles and roundups with filtered tags.

How It Works

For Articles:

• RSS feeds provide tags (e.g., "climate change, world news, homepage, breaking")
• Ontology filters them (keeps: "Climate Change", removes: "world news, homepage, breaking")
• Only ontology-matched tags are applied

For Roundups:

• Automatically inherits tags from the 30 articles included
• Shows diverse topic coverage

Matching Logic:

1. Exact match - "Climate Change" → Climate Change ✓
2. Alias match - "global warming" → Climate Change ✓ (via alias)
3. Fuzzy match - "renewable" → Renewable Energy ✓ (partial match)

Benefits

✅ No more junk tags ("World News", "Homepage", "Featured") ✅ Consistent terminology across all feeds ✅ UN SDG-aligned for impact reporting ✅ Better SEO with focused keywords ✅ Professional appearance ✅ Tag archives actually work (no clutter)

Managing Your News Aggregator

System Status Dashboard

The main page shows:

• Last Run: When the aggregator last processed feeds
• Next Scheduled Run: When it will run next (hourly)
• API Key Status: Whether your key is configured
• Active Feeds: How many feeds are enabled

Feed Management

Enable/Disable Feeds:

• Click Disable to temporarily stop importing from a feed
• Click Enable to reactivate it

Delete Feeds:

• Click Delete and confirm
• This won't delete posts already created

Manual Processing

Click Run Aggregator Now to:

• Process feeds immediately (don't wait for hourly cron)
• Test your configuration
• Fetch latest articles after adding new feeds

Configuration Options

Post Settings

Default Category:

• Assigns all imported posts to a specific category
• Create categories first in Posts → Categories

Post Status:

• Publish: Posts go live immediately
• Draft: Posts are saved as drafts for you to review

Customizing the Cron Schedule

Default: Runs every hour

To change frequency, you'll need to modify WordPress cron. Example for every 30 minutes - add to your theme's functions.php:

add_filter('cron_schedules', function($schedules) {
    $schedules['thirty_minutes'] = array(
        'interval' => 1800,
        'display' => 'Every 30 Minutes'
    );
    return $schedules;
});

Then you'd need to modify the plugin's activation hook to use 'thirty_minutes' instead of 'hourly'.

Displaying Posts on Your Homepage

The plugin creates regular WordPress posts. To display them on your homepage:

Option 1: Use Your Theme

Most WordPress themes automatically show recent posts on the homepage. Check:

• Settings → Reading
• Make sure "Your homepage displays" is set to "Your latest posts"

Option 2: Use a Category

1. Create a category called "News" (or similar)
2. Set it as the default category in plugin settings
3. Use your theme's category template to display these posts

Option 3: Use a Custom Query

Add to your theme template:

<?php
$args = array(
    'posts_per_page' => 10,
    'meta_key' => 'envirolink_source_url',
    'meta_compare' => 'EXISTS'
);
$query = new WP_Query($args);
if ($query->have_posts()) :
    while ($query->have_posts()) : $query->the_post();
        // Display post
        the_title();
        the_excerpt();
    endwhile;
endif;
wp_reset_postdata();
?>

Troubleshooting

No posts are being created

Check these:

1. API Key: Make sure it's entered correctly in Settings (starts with "sk-ant-")
2. Feeds Enabled: At least one feed must have a green dot (enabled)
3. Feed URLs: Make sure they're valid RSS feeds
4. WordPress Cron: Some hosts disable WP cron. Check with your hosting provider
5. Errors: Check WordPress debug logs or PHP error logs

Posts aren't appearing on homepage

Solutions:

1. Go to Settings → Reading and check homepage settings
2. Make sure your theme is configured to show posts
3. Check if posts are in Draft status (change to Publish in plugin settings)

"API key not configured" error

• Double-check you've saved the API key in the Settings tab
• The key should start with sk-ant-
• Try copying and pasting it again

Duplicate articles

This shouldn't happen! The plugin stores each article's source URL and checks before importing. If you see duplicates:

• Each post has metadata envirolink_source_url
• The plugin compares this before creating new posts

Need more help?

1. Check WordPress and PHP error logs
2. Click "Run Aggregator Now" and watch for error messages
3. Verify your API key has credits at console.anthropic.com

Costs

API Usage

Using Claude Sonnet 4:

• ~$3 per million input tokens
• ~$15 per million output tokens

Estimated Monthly Costs

Conservative estimate (5 active feeds, hourly updates):

• ~10 articles/feed/hour = 50 articles/hour
• ~1,200 articles/day
• ~36,000 articles/month
• ~2,000 tokens per article
• ~$50-150/month

Cost saving tips:

• Use fewer feeds
• Reduce cron frequency to every 3-6 hours
• Set lower article limits per feed

Security

• API keys stored securely in WordPress database
• All URLs sanitized before storage
• WordPress nonces protect all admin actions
• Only administrators can access settings
• No external dependencies except Anthropic API

Development & Version Control

Initialize Git Repository

cd envirolink-ai-aggregator
git init
git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit: EnviroLink AI News Aggregator v1.0"

File Structure

envirolink-ai-aggregator/
├── envirolink-ai-aggregator.php  # Main plugin (all functionality)
├── README.md                      # This documentation
└── .gitignore                     # Git ignore file

Future Enhancements

Potential features to add:

• Image extraction from original articles
• Multi-language support
• Custom post types for aggregated content
• Advanced filtering and tagging
• Email notifications for new posts
• Analytics and reporting

Credits

• Built for: EnviroLink.org
• Powered by: Anthropic Claude AI
• License: GPL v2 or later

Version History

v1.47.0 - Ontology Tagging for Roundups (2025-11-23)

• Daily roundups now inherit ontology tags from included articles
• Re-tag tool processes both articles and roundups
• Separate counts in results: "X articles, Y roundups"

v1.46.0 - Environmental News Ontology System (2025-11-23)

• 41-topic professional taxonomy (IPTC Media Topics + UN SDGs)
• Intelligent tag filtering (exact → alias → fuzzy matching)
• New Ontology admin tab with full CRUD interface
• Automatic integration with article tagging
• 200+ aliases for smart matching
• Bulk re-tagging tool for existing posts

v1.45.0 - Keyword Daily Limiting (2025-11-23)

• Prevents redundant coverage of same events
• Configurable limit per topic per day (default: 2 articles)
• Calendar-day based counter (resets at midnight)
• Smart keyword extraction from article titles

v1.43.0 - Per-Feed Pexels Integration (2025-11-13)

• Per-feed option to use Pexels instead of RSS images
• Intelligent keyword extraction for image search
• Daily roundups switched to Pexels
• Pexels API key configuration in Settings

v1.42.0 - Enterprise PID-Based Locking (2025-11-13)

• Eliminates duplicate posts via process liveness check
• Heartbeat mechanism for long-running imports
• Atomic metadata storage
• Extended timeout handling

v1.38.0 - Scheduled Feed Processing (2025-11-09)

• 7am ET and 4pm ET processing windows
• Manual triggers bypass time restrictions
• Better resource management

v1.37.0 - AI Editorial Metadata Generation (2025-11-09)

• Professional headlines and descriptions for roundups
• Multi-story hooks for better engagement
• SEO-optimized titles and meta descriptions
• Date cadence included in titles

v1.0.0 - Initial Release

• RSS feed management
• AI-powered content rewriting
• Hourly automated updates
• Duplicate detection
• Admin dashboard with manual triggers