While developing the new website for the student council I found Hugo’s default RSS template externer Link lacking in two points:

The default template is built for blogs with only a single author. We will have many different authors on the student council website.

It only provides the content as text. Providing a text only representation in the description tag is the way described by the RSS standard. Many current RSS readers can also display a HTML representation of the content. The advantage of a HTML representation is that elements like images and lists can be displayed. HTML content can be shown by including a content:encoded tag in the item with the HTML wrapped in a <![CDATA[...]]>.

The modified RSS template can be found below. Save it as layouts/rss.xml to use this template.

The template assumes that the articles all have an image. The location of the image is stored as image in the page’s frontmatter.

{{/* Based on Hugos default rss template: https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/blob/master/tpl/tplimpl/embedded/templates/_default/rss.xml */}}
{{- $pctx := . }}
{{- if .IsHome }}{{ $pctx = .Site }}{{ end }}
{{- $pages := slice }}
{{- if or $.IsHome $.IsSection }}
{{- $pages = $pctx.RegularPages }}
{{- else }}
{{- $pages = $pctx.Pages }}
{{- end }}
{{- $limit := .Site.Config.Services.RSS.Limit }}
{{- if ge $limit 1 }}
{{- $pages = $pages | first $limit }}
{{- end }}
{{- printf "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"utf-8\" standalone=\"yes\"?>" | safeHTML }}
<rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/">
  <channel>
    <title>{{ if eq .Title .Site.Title }}{{ .Site.Title }}{{ else }}{{ with .Title }}{{ . }} on {{ end }}{{ .Site.Title }}{{ end }}</title>
    <link>{{ .Permalink }}</link>
    <description>Recent content {{ if ne .Title .Site.Title }}{{ with .Title }}in {{ . }} {{ end }}{{ end }}on {{ .Site.Title }}</description>
    <generator>Hugo -- gohugo.io</generator>
    <docs>https://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification</docs>
    <ttl>60</ttl>
    <language>{{ site.Language.LanguageCode }}</language>
    {{ with .Site.Copyright }}<copyright>{{ . }}</copyright>{{ end }}
    <lastBuildDate>{{ now.Format "Mon, 02 Jan 2006 15:04:05 -0700" | safeHTML }}</lastBuildDate>
    {{ with resources.Get (.Site.Params.Logo) }}<image><url>{{ .Permalink }}</url><title>{{ if eq page.Title page.Site.Title }}{{ page.Site.Title }}{{ else }}{{ with page.Title }}{{ . }} on {{ end }}{{ page.Site.Title }}{{ end }}</title><link>{{ page.Permalink }}</link></image>{{ end }}
    {{- with .OutputFormats.Get "RSS" }}
    {{ printf "<atom:link href=%q rel=\"self\" type=%q />" .Permalink .MediaType | safeHTML }}
    {{- end }}
    {{- range $pages }}
    <item>
      <title>{{ .Title }}</title>
      <link>{{ .Permalink }}</link>
      <pubDate>{{ .Date.Format "Mon, 02 Jan 2006 15:04:05 -0700" | safeHTML }}</pubDate>
      {{- with .Params.Author }}<author>{{ index $.Site.Params.Author . "name" }}</author>{{ end }}
      <guid>{{ .Permalink }}</guid>
      <description>{{ .Content | plainify }}</description>
      {{ $page := . }}
      {{- with .Params.image }}{{- with $page.Resources.Get . }}<content:encoded>{{ printf "<![CDATA[" | safeHTML }}<a href="{{ $page.Permalink }}"><img src="{{ .Permalink }}" /></a><br/><br/>{{ $page.Content | transform.HTMLUnescape | safe.HTML }}{{ printf "]]>" | safeHTML }}</content:encoded>{{ end }}{{ end }}
    </item>
    {{- end }}
  </channel>
</rss>