Alex Krause has released AI Gude, a self-hosted tool that transforms RSS feeds into personalized audio podcasts. The project, which hit Hacker News on November 10, 2026, allows users to define specific news sources and schedule automated episode generation. By combining Large Language Models for scriptwriting with text-to-speech capabilities, AI Gude delivers a curated morning briefing directly to your device, all hosted on your own infrastructure.

The Technical Stack

The architecture relies on a clear pipeline of open-source and API-driven components. Users must provide API keys for Google AI Studio (Gemini) to handle both the scriptwriting and the voice synthesis, as well as Firecrawl for retrieving clean article text from the web. The backend is built with Go, utilizing SQLite for database management and ffmpeg for audio encoding. The system supports both hosted Firecrawl and self-hosted instances, giving developers control over their data privacy and costs.

Configuration and Deployment

AI Gude is designed for ease of deployment, particularly for those familiar with containerization. It ships with an Ansible collection for installing the service on Linux hosts using rootful Podman, though the documentation warns that the Ansible roles are "vibe coded" and should be reviewed before production use. The service listens on localhost by default, requiring a reverse proxy like Traefik for public access. Authentication is handled externally by the proxy, which injects a header to identify the user, ensuring each person sees only their own configuration and episodes.

Key Takeaways

  • AI Gude is free and open-source under the AGPLv3 license, encouraging self-hosting.
  • The tool uses a queue-based system where one episode is produced at a time, preventing resource spikes.
  • Content caching is shared across users with a default TTL of ten days, reducing redundant API calls.
  • The project includes a live demo instance for users to test the output quality before deploying.

The Bottom Line

For developers who want to replace newsletter fatigue with an audio-first news consumption model, AI Gude offers a practical, self-hosted solution that puts control back in the user's hands.