Intro & Defaults

Feed groups are templates that define how different feeds behave in your application. The configuration options let you create feeds that work differently depending on your use case.

By adjusting settings like ranking, aggregation, activity selectors, and processors, you can tailor each feed group to serve specific purposes in your app.

Note that any write operation to feed groups/views can take up to 30 seconds to propagate to all API nodes.

Built-in groups

There are several feed groups setup by default.

GroupDescription
userA feed setup for the content a user creates. Typically you add activities here when someone writes a post
timelineThe timeline feed is used when you're following. So if user Charlie is following John, timeline:charlie would follow user:john
foryouA version of the timeline feed that adds popular content, and prioritizes popularity over recency
notificationA notification feed. Think of the bell icon you see in most apps
storyA feed set up for users to post story activities (activities with expiration data)
storiesA timeline feed which can be used to follow other users' stories.

You can update the default feed group configurations or create your own feed groups.

Create feed groups

Here's how to create a feed group using the API:

const myFeedGroup = await serverClient.feeds.createFeedGroup({
  id: "myid",
  activity_selectors: [
    {
      type: "following",
    },
  ],
  ranking: { type: "recency" },
  activity_processors: [
    {
      type: "text_interest_tags",
    },
  ],
  custom: {
    description: "My custom feed group",
  },
});

Applications can't have more than 100 feed groups

Overview of the feed group model

Alternatively you can use the getOrCreateFeedGroup endpoint that will create and apply settings, or return the existing group.

List feed groups

To list existing feed groups and their configurations:

response, err := client.Feeds().ListFeedGroups(context.Background(), &getstream.ListFeedGroupsRequest{})
if err != nil {
    log.Fatal("Error listing feed groups:", err)
}

Activity Ranking

When ranking activities you can specify a ranking formula.

ctx := context.Background()

createFeedGroupRequest := &getstream.CreateFeedGroupRequest{
    ID: "mytimeline",
    Ranking: &getstream.RankingConfig{
        Type:  getstream.PtrTo("expression"),
        Score: getstream.PtrTo("decay_linear(time) * popularity"),
    },
    ActivitySelectors: []getstream.ActivitySelectorConfig{
        {
            Type: getstream.PtrTo("following"),
        },
    },
}

// Create the feed group
response, err := client.Feeds().CreateFeedGroup(ctx, createFeedGroupRequest)
if err != nil {
    log.Fatal("Error creating feed group:", err)
}

fmt.Printf("Feed group created successfully!\n")
fmt.Printf("Duration: %s\n", response.Data.Duration)
fmt.Printf("Feed Group ID: %s\n", response.Data.FeedGroup.ID)

For you Feeds

Many apps want to have a "for you" or personalized feed. There are a couple benefits to a personalized feed:

  • Works well even if your users don't spend much time setting up follows
  • Can be a mechanism to discover new content or things to follow

Stream offers a few built-in methods to create a for you feed and gives you the API access to do more advanced customization if needed.

This next example is a bit more complicated. It uses an activity processor to add topic data to activities, activity selectors to pull in content from different sources, and ranks content you're likely to engage with higher in the feed.

const response = await serverClient.feeds.createFeedGroup({
  id: "mytimeline",
  // Run the activity processors to analyse topics for text & images
  activity_processors: [
    { type: "text_interest_tags" },
    { type: "image_interest_tags" },
  ],
  // Activity selectors change which activities are included in the feed
  // The default "following" selectors gets activities from the feeds you follow
  // The "popular" activity selectors includes the popular activities
  // And "interest" activities similar to activities you've engaged with in the past
  // You can use multiple selectors in 1 feed
  activity_selectors: [
    {
      type: "popular",
    },
    {
      type: "following",
    },
    {
      type: "interest",
    },
  ],
  // Rank for a user based on interest score
  // This calculates a score 0-1.0 of how well the activity matches the user's prior interest
  ranking: {
    type: "interest",
    score: "decay_linear(time) * interest_score * decay_linear(popularity)",
  },
});

const forYouFeed = client.feeds.feed("mytimeline", "thierry");
const response = await forYouFeed.getOrCreate({ user_id: "thierry" });

Aggregation & Notification Feeds

Aggregation groups similar activities together, which is useful for notification feeds and reducing noise.

Aggregation Format

You can create your own aggregated feeds:

myNotificationGroup, err := client.Feeds().CreateFeedGroup(context.Background(), &getstream.CreateFeedGroupRequest{
    ID: "myid2",
    // Group by activity type and day
    Aggregation: &getstream.AggregationConfig{
        Format: getstream.PtrTo("{{ type }}-{{ time.strftime(\"%Y-%m-%d\") }}"),
    },
    // Enable notification tracking
    Notification: &getstream.NotificationConfig{
        TrackRead: getstream.PtrTo(true),
        TrackSeen: getstream.PtrTo(true),
    },
})
if err != nil {
    log.Fatal("Error creating feed group:", err)
}

Notification Feed Example

The built-in notification feed comes with the necessary configurations:

notificationFeed := client.Feeds().Feed("notification", "john")
// Read notifications
response, err := notificationFeed.GetOrCreate(context.Background(), &getstream.GetOrCreateFeedRequest{
  Limit:  getstream.PtrTo(20),
  UserID: getstream.PtrTo("john"),
})
if err != nil {
  log.Fatal(err)
}
log.Printf("Response: %+v\n", response.Data.AggregatedActivities)

Marking Notifications as Read

notificationFeed := client.Feeds().Feed("notification", "john")

_, err = notificationFeed.MarkActivity(context.Background(), &getstream.MarkActivityRequest{
  // Mark all notifications as read...
  MarkAllRead: getstream.PtrTo(true),
  // ...or only selected ones
  MarkRead: []string{
    // group names to mark as read
  },
  UserID:      getstream.PtrTo("john"),
})
if err != nil {
  log.Fatal("Error:", err)
}

Updating feed groups

It's possible to update any custom or built-in feed group:

_, err = client.Feeds().UpdateFeedGroup(context.Background(), "myid", &getstream.UpdateFeedGroupRequest{
    // Fields to update
})
if err != nil {
    log.Fatal("Error updating feed group:", err)
}

Deleting feed groups

Deleting feed groups will not cascade delete associated resources. It will make feeds within the feed group unreadable but any fanout that has happened before deletion will stay in effect.

If you need a clean slate during development it is advised to create a new feed group instead.

_, err = client.Feeds().DeleteFeedGroup(context.Background(), "mytimeline", &getstream.DeleteFeedGroupRequest{})
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