All Examples

Personal Blog

A complete Byline implementation for a single-author personal blog with full identity, theming, and perspective support.

What This Demonstrates

  • • Single author defined at feed level
  • • Full context bio describing who the author is
  • • Profile links to Mastodon and GitHub for verification
  • • Links to /now and /uses pages
  • • Custom theme colors
  • • Different perspectives on different posts (personal, review)
Start here
This is the recommended starting point for personal blogs. It demonstrates all the key Byline features in a straightforward single-author context.

Full Example

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0" xmlns:byline="https://bylinespec.org/1.0">
  <channel>
    <title>Annie's Blog</title>
    <link>https://annie.example.com</link>
    <description>Thoughts on design, photography, and creative tools.</description>

    <byline:contributors>
      <byline:person id="annie">
        <byline:name>Annie Park</byline:name>
        <byline:context>Designer and photographer based in Portland. Previously design lead at Figma. I write about creative tools, process, and the indie web.</byline:context>
        <byline:url>https://annie.example.com</byline:url>
        <byline:avatar>https://annie.example.com/avatar.jpg</byline:avatar>
        <byline:profile href="https://mastodon.social/@annie" rel="mastodon"/>
        <byline:profile href="https://github.com/anniepark" rel="github"/>
        <byline:now>https://annie.example.com/now</byline:now>
        <byline:uses>https://annie.example.com/uses</byline:uses>
        <byline:theme color="#4A90A4" accent="#FF6B6B" style="light"/>
      </byline:person>
    </byline:contributors>

    <item>
      <title>Why I switched to Affinity</title>
      <link>https://annie.example.com/affinity-switch</link>
      <guid>https://annie.example.com/affinity-switch</guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jan 2026 10:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <description>After 10 years with Adobe, I finally made the switch...</description>
      <byline:author ref="annie"/>
      <byline:perspective>personal</byline:perspective>
    </item>

    <item>
      <title>Fujifilm X100VI Review</title>
      <link>https://annie.example.com/x100vi-review</link>
      <guid>https://annie.example.com/x100vi-review</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 13 Jan 2026 10:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <description>The camera I've been waiting for...</description>
      <byline:author ref="annie"/>
      <byline:perspective>review</byline:perspective>
    </item>
  </channel>
</rss>

Key Elements

Author Definition

The author is defined once at the feed level with an id that can be referenced by items.

Context

The context element provides a human-readable bio. Keep it under 280 characters and focus on relevant information: who you are, what you do, and what readers can expect.

Perspective

Each item can have its own perspective. In this example, the first post is personal (opinion/experience) while the second is a review.

Theme

The author specifies preferred colors and style. Feed readers may use these for subtle visual customization like author card borders or accent colors.

Related Spec Sections