Pipeline Modes

The plugin offers two pipeline architectures, plus a standalone RSS option. Choose based on your needs:

Agentic Mode

A single AI provider handles both web search and summarization. Simple setup — just 1 API key.

Modular Mode

Separate retriever (Google Search or RSS) + summarizer (Gemini, GPT, Claude, Grok, or OpenRouter). More control, mix & match.

Agentic vs Modular

AgenticModular (Search + Summarize)
API Keys1 key2–3 keys
SetupSimpleMore involved
Search ControlAI decides5 parallel strategies, AI judge, quality filtering
CostPaid per requestRSS + Gemini summaries have a free API tier
Best ForQuick setup, good qualityPower users, cost-conscious, maximum control

Agentic Providers

Each provider performs native web research, followed by a structured formatting call:

ProviderDefault ModelBest For
Gemini Conditional free tier gemini-2.5-flash (eligible existing users) Legacy free grounding for eligible existing 2.5 users; newer models require billing
Perplexity Paid sonar Speed & real-time web search
OpenAI GPT Paid gpt-6.1-sol High-quality summaries with web search
Anthropic Claude Paid claude-sonnet-5.5 Deep analysis & reasoning
Grok (xAI) Paid grok-4.7 X/Twitter data & fast processing
OpenRouter Paid Any model (free-text input) Model flexibility via unified API

Every provider's model field is editable in plugin settings — enter any model ID your API key supports. Leave it blank to use the default shown above.

Modular Mode (Search + Summarize)

In modular mode, you independently choose a news retriever and an AI summarizer. This gives you maximum control over how news is fetched and processed.

graph LR A[Your Topics] --> B[Retriever] B --> C{Which Retriever?} C -->|Google Search| D[5 Parallel Queries
AI Filtering & Ranking] C -->|RSS Feeds| E[Fetch & Filter
by Topic Keywords] D --> F[AI Summarizer] E --> G[Final Note
no AI needed] F --> G style A fill:#a855f7,stroke:#d8b4fe,color:#fff style G fill:#22c55e,stroke:#86efac,color:#fff

News Retrievers

The retriever fetches raw news. You pick one:

Google Custom Search

Searches the web using 5 parallel strategies (optimized, specific, broad, recent, simple). Results are deduplicated, quality-filtered, and ranked by AI.

Requires: Existing Google Search API Key + Search Engine ID. Closed to new customers; service ends January 1, 2027. Use Perplexity Search, RSS, or agentic search instead.

Optional: Gemini API Key for AI-powered query generation and news judging

RSS Feeds

Fetches articles directly from any RSS/Atom feed URLs you provide. Matches articles to your topics by title, content, and categories. Deduplicates and sorts by date.

Requires: Nothing — no API keys, no costs

Note: Uses original feed content (no AI summarization)

AI Summarizers

When using Google Search as the retriever, pair it with one of these summarizers:

SummarizerDefault ModelCostGet API Key
Gemini FREE gemini-3.8-flash Free API tier; quotas vary by project Google AI Studio
GPT gpt-6.1-sol Pay-per-use OpenAI
Claude claude-sonnet-5.5 Pay-per-use Anthropic
Grok grok-4.7 Pay-per-use xAI
OpenRouter Any model (free-text input) Pay-per-use OpenRouter
Best free option: RSS + Gemini summaries (automatic default: gemini-3.8-flash). Gemini 3.8 Flash text generation has a free API tier, but its Google Search grounding requires billing. The agentic default gemini-2.5-flash retains free grounding only for eligible existing users, subject to project quotas.

API Setup Guides

Step-by-step instructions for each provider. Click to expand:

Agentic Providers (1 API key each)

For any agentic provider: get the key, store it in Obsidian's Secret Storage (Settings > Secret Storage), then choose the provider in plugin settings and select the secret. Done.

ProviderWhere to Get KeySelect in Settings
Gemini FREE aistudio.google.com "Gemini (Google Search)"
Perplexity perplexity.ai > API settings "Perplexity (Agentic Search)"
OpenAI GPT platform.openai.com "OpenAI GPT (Agentic Search)"
Anthropic Claude console.anthropic.com "Anthropic Claude (Agentic Search)"
Grok (xAI) x.ai "Grok (Agentic Search)"
OpenRouter openrouter.ai/keys "OpenRouter (Agentic Search)" + enter model ID (e.g. anthropic/claude-sonnet-5.5)

Each provider (Gemini, Perplexity, GPT, Claude, Grok) also has an optional Model field in settings — enter any model ID your API key supports, or leave it blank to use the default.

Google Search + Summarizer (modular)

All modular Google pipelines share the same two Google keys. Then add the summarizer key.

Step 1: Legacy Google Keys (existing customers only) FREE

Google Custom Search API Key:

  1. Go to Google Cloud Console
  2. Use your existing authorized project. New customers cannot enable this API; switch to RSS or Perplexity Search.
  3. Go to Credentials > Create Credentials > API Key

Google Search Engine ID:

  1. Visit Programmable Search Engine
  2. Create a new engine > Select "Search the entire web"
  3. Copy the Search Engine ID
Step 2: Summarizer Key

Add the API key for whichever summarizer you choose:

SummarizerGet Key FromCost
GeminiGoogle AI StudioFree
GPTOpenAIPaid
ClaudeAnthropicPaid
GrokxAIPaid
OpenRouterOpenRouterPaid

Then select your pipeline in settings (e.g., "Google Search + Gemini Summarizer") and select the corresponding secrets for each key.

Free Tier Limits: Google Custom Search: 100 queries/day • Gemini API: project-specific model and tool quotas • More than enough for daily news generation.

RSS Retriever (no setup needed)

  1. Select "RSS Retriever" as your pipeline in settings
  2. Enter your RSS/Atom feed URLs (one per line)
  3. Apply RSS Digest or set your topics — the plugin matches articles by title, content, and categories

No API keys, no accounts, no costs. Works with any standard RSS or Atom feed.