Dual-Host Daily Podcast Generator

Generate and publish a dual-host daily podcast. Fetches news, generates a conversational script between two hosts, synthesizes audio via Fish Audio or Edge TTS, publishes to S3 with RSS feed for Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc. Fully automated with cron support.

Automated daily podcast with two AI hosts. Generates text brief + dual-voice audio, publishes to RSS, delivers via messaging.

Concept

• Format: Two hosts — one explains/analyzes, the other asks and transitions
• Duration: Configurable, default ~7 minutes
• Style: Casual, opinionated, conversational — like two friends chatting about the news
• Topics: Customizable (default: AI/Tech, Stocks, Macro, Crypto)

Architecture

Fetch News → Text Brief → Dual-Voice Script → TTS Audio → S3 Upload → RSS Update → Deliver

Configuration

Set these in your environment:

Variable	Description
S3_BUCKET	S3 bucket name
PODCAST_DOMAIN	Custom domain or S3 URL
FISH_API_KEY	Fish Audio API key (https://fish.audio)
FISH_VOICE_A	Fish Audio voice ID for Host A
FISH_VOICE_B	Fish Audio voice ID for Host B

Step 1: Fetch News

Use web_fetch to scrape sources in parallel. Default sources:

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/ — Tech
2. https://www.coindesk.com/ — Crypto
3. https://techcrunch.com/category/artificial-intelligence/ — AI
4. https://finance.yahoo.com/ — Markets

Customize sources to match your podcast topic.

Step 2: Generate Text Brief

Organize news into sections with emoji headers:

☀️ Daily Brief | Mar 3, 2026

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🤖 Tech / AI

① Headline
→ One-line take

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

📈 Markets

① Headline
→ One-line take

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🎯 Key Takeaway
Summary paragraph

Step 3: Generate Dual-Voice Script

Rewrite the brief as a dialogue. Prefix each line with speaker tag:

HostA: Welcome to today's episode...
HostB: Some big stories today...
HostA: Right, let's start with...

Guidelines:

• Host A: Explains and analyzes, knowledgeable but casual
• Host B: Asks, transitions, reacts
• Substantial turns, not one-liners
• Include analysis and discussion, not just headlines
• End with a lighter topic + sign-off

Step 4: Generate Audio

Fish Audio (recommended — natural, multi-voice):

python3 scripts/fish_dual_tts.py <script.txt> <output.mp3>

Parses speaker tags, sends each segment to Fish Audio, concatenates into final MP3.

Edge TTS (free fallback, single voice):

edge-tts --voice en-US-GuyNeural --rate "+5%" --file script.txt --write-media output.mp3

Step 5: Publish

bash scripts/generate_episode.sh <date> <EP-number> <title> <description> <mp3-file>

What it does:

1. Upload MP3 to S3
2. Get actual duration via ffprobe
3. Insert <item> into RSS feed (newest first)
4. Update <lastBuildDate>

Step 6: Deliver

Send text brief + audio via your preferred channel (Telegram, Discord, Slack, etc.)

RSS Feed

See references/rss-format.md for XML template.

Key rules:

• <itunes:duration> = actual duration from ffprobe (never hardcode)
• <enclosure length> = actual file size in bytes
• <itunes:owner> with email for Apple/Spotify verification
• Cover: 3000x3000 JPEG minimum

Hosting Options

Option	Notes
S3 + Cloudflare Worker	Free HTTPS, recommended
S3 + CloudFront	Native AWS
Any static host	Just serve MP3 + feed.xml

Cron (OpenClaw)

openclaw cron add --task "Generate daily podcast" --cron "0 8 * * *" --tz "Your/Timezone"

Dependencies

• python3 + requests — Fish Audio TTS
• ffmpeg / ffprobe — Audio processing
• aws CLI — S3 upload
• edge-tts (optional) — Free fallback TTS