service-royalroad-chapters is a FastAPI-based webserver that monitors Royalroad stories for new chapters and sends notifications data to backend-api-internal.

Features

RSS Feed Monitoring: Parses Royal Road RSS feeds to detect new chapter releases
Automatic Updates: Updates database with latest chapter numbers
Retry Logic: Built-in retry mechanisms for network failures with exponential backoff
Prometheus Metrics: Request counters and performance monitoring on port 9000

Prerequisites

Python 3.10+
MySQL database
Backend notification service (for sending push notifications)
Royal Road story IDs

Installation

pip install -r requirements.txt

Running the Service

python main.py

This starts two servers:

Main API: http://0.0.0.0:5000 - Handles chapter check requests
Metrics Server: http://0.0.0.0:9000/metrics - Prometheus metrics endpoint

API Endpoint

Check for New Chapters

GET /royalroad

Response:

{
  "status": "checked"
}

Behavior:

Fetches all active stories from the database
Queries Royal Road RSS feed for each story
Compares latest chapter with stored chapter number
Updates database if new chapter is detected
Sends notification to backend service

Error Responses:

404: Feed not found or has no entries
500: Internal server error during processing
503: Notification service unavailable after retries

Notification Format

Messages sent to the backend service:

{
  "receipent_user_id": 1,
  "message": {
    "title": "New Life As A Max Level Archmage",
    "body": "Chapter 68 has been released",
    "link": "https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/118891/new-life-as-a-max-level-archmage/chapter/2683797/68-carve",
    "category": "royal-road",
    "timestamp": 1729339200
  }
}

Headers:

X-API-Key-Internal: <api_key>
Content-Type: application/json

Monitoring

Prometheus Metrics

Available at http://localhost:9000/metrics:

http_requests_total{method, path, status}: Request counter with labels