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Create Inoreader rules from a plain-language brief

You know what you want caught, say every mention of a competitor's price change, but building the rule means choosing a trigger, joining conditions and stacking actions in one dialog, and you already have 30 rules.

Cotlet does it in your own Inoreader account with list_rules and create_rule, called by your AI agent, an n8n workflow or a script.

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Hosted · nothing to install or maintain

Can Inoreader do this on its own?

Inoreader has no API method for rules (checked 17 Oct 2026): rules are built in the Automate tab, and the 14 documented API methods cover feeds, tags, streams and read state only. Pro includes 30 rules and more can be bought as an add-on. Inoreader's Zapier app can watch a folder for new articles, but it does not create rules.

How you do it in Inoreader today

  1. Open the Automate tab and click Create rule.
  2. Name the rule and choose its trigger: a new article in your account, one feed or one folder, an article that receives a tag, or a new item in Read later.
  3. Add conditions on title and/or content, author, URL, attachments, language or RSS categories, and join them with AND or OR.
  4. Choose the actions: assign tags, save to Read later, send by email, create summaries or translations, notify, add notes, mark as read, trigger a webhook or send to a service such as Instapaper or Dropbox.
  5. Test the rule with Run rule on articles you already have, then click Save rule.

How to create Inoreader rules from a plain-language brief

Prompt

Look at my current Inoreader rules. Then create a rule for the folder Competitors: when the title or content mentions "pricing" or "price increase", tag the article pricing-watch and email it to me. Do not touch my existing rules.
  1. 01

    Read what exists

    list_rules returns your rules with trigger, conditions and actions, so the agent can see whether one already covers the topic and counts how many of your 30 slots are used.

  2. 02

    Turn the brief into a rule

    The agent picks the trigger from the scope you named (the folder Competitors), writes the conditions with OR between the two phrases, and maps "tag it and email me" to the assign-tag and email actions.

  3. 03

    Stop on a conflict

    If an existing rule already tags pricing-watch on the same folder, or all slots are used, the agent reports it and does not create a near copy.

  4. 04

    Create the rule

    create_rule saves it through the Automate tab. Because email and webhook actions reach other people and services, the call waits for your OK by default.

  5. 05

    Check it on real articles

    The agent runs the rule on existing articles with run_on_existing set, then list_articles with the new tag to show which ones matched before you rely on it.

What you get back

Example data

Rule created: Competitor pricing
Trigger: new article in folder Competitors
If title and/or content contains "pricing" OR "price increase"
Then: tag pricing-watch, email to you
Rule slots used: 12 of 30
Test run on existing articles: 4 matched
- "Acme raises team plan to $29" (Acme Blog)

Other ways to ask

  • Create a rule that marks articles as read when the title contains "sponsored" in the folder Newsletters.
  • Add a webhook action to my pricing-watch rule that posts the article to my n8n URL.
  • List my rules that have matched nothing this month so I can delete them.

What Inoreader allows, and what to know first

  • A rule trigger in Inoreader can be a new article in the account, a feed or a folder, a tag assigned to an article, a new Read later item, a saved web page, an uploaded file, a new Intelligence report or another matched rule.
  • Conditions can be joined with AND or OR, and a rule can carry several actions at once.
  • Pro includes 30 rules; more rules are a paid add-on.
  • Run rule applies a rule to articles you already have, which is how you test it before saving.
  • Rules and filters are separate: a filter keeps or removes articles in a feed or folder, a rule acts on them, and Pro includes 50 filters.

create_rule asks for your OK by default. To run it weekly without you, switch confirmation off for that tool in your dashboard.

Sources: Inoreader blog: Save time with automations · Inoreader developers: API overview · Inoreader pricing · Zapier: Inoreader integrations

Call create_rule from a script

curl

curl -X POST https://cotlet.dev/api/v1/inoreader/rules \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $COTLET_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name":"Competitor pricing","scope":"folder","scope_name":"Competitors","operator":"any","conditions":[{"field":"title_or_content","contains":"pricing"},{"field":"title_or_content","contains":"price increase"}],"actions":[{"type":"assign_tag","value":"pricing-watch"},{"type":"email"}]}'

Example response

{
  "rule_id": "r_219",
  "name": "Competitor pricing",
  "enabled": true,
  "slots_used": 12,
  "slots_total": 30
}

MCP: add https://cotlet.dev/mcp/v1 with the same key; the call is inoreader_write → create_rule. Example data.

Schedule it in n8n, Make, Zapier or cron

Inoreader tools this automation uses

Cotlet Inoreader tools used to create Inoreader rules from a plain-language brief
Tool Parameters
list_rules none
create_rule name, scope, scope_name, operator, conditions, actions, run_on_existing
All 13 Inoreader tools with descriptions

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