Gera Tools

News Feed Data Generator

Fake news article feeds for app mockups

Generate fake news feed JSON with headlines, sources, categories, summaries, timestamps and image-URL placeholders. Prototype news aggregator and content-platform UIs with realistic article data, all in your browser. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

Last updated Source: Gera Tools

What fields does each article include?

Every article has an id, a headline, a source name, a category, a one-sentence summary, a placeholder article URL, an image URL, an ISO 8601 published timestamp and an estimated read time in minutes. This matches the fields most news cards display.

Article data for news and content apps

The News Feed Data Generator produces fake article feeds — headlines, sources, categories, summaries, timestamps and image placeholders. It is built for prototyping news aggregators and content platforms so feed cards, category filters and detail pages have realistic data before any real content pipeline exists.

How it works

You set an article count and optionally lock the feed to a single category. For each article the generator assembles a headline by combining a descriptor, a topic noun and an outcome phrase from curated pools, picks a source and a one-sentence summary, and assigns a category (the one you chose, or a random one in mixed mode). It then slugifies the headline to build a stable placeholder article URL and a seeded image URL, places a published timestamp within the last fourteen days of a fixed base, and estimates a read time of one to eight minutes.

A seeded pseudo-random source keeps a configuration stable between renders, with Regenerate advancing the seed. The output is one object with an articles array; each article uses the conventional fields a news card renders, so it maps onto aggregator and content-platform components without transformation. The image URLs resolve against a public placeholder service, so the demo shows real thumbnails rather than broken images.

What a generated article looks like

Each item in the articles array includes these fields, matching the data shape a typical news card renders:

{
  "id": "article-007",
  "headline": "Scientists Discover New Climate Pattern",
  "source": "The Daily Chronicle",
  "category": "Science",
  "summary": "Researchers have identified a previously unknown atmospheric cycle affecting seasonal temperatures.",
  "articleUrl": "/articles/scientists-discover-new-climate-pattern",
  "imageUrl": "https://picsum.photos/seed/scientists-discover/640/360",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-09T14:30:00Z",
  "readTime": 4
}

The publishedAt timestamps are ISO 8601 formatted and fall within the last 14 days, so sorting by this field gives you a believable chronological feed immediately. The imageUrl is seeded from the article slug, meaning the same article always shows the same placeholder thumbnail — useful for keeping screenshots consistent across prototype reviews.

Tips for frontend developers

  • Test infinite scroll by generating 40 to 60 articles — enough to trigger pagination logic without overwhelming the prototype.
  • Section pages: lock the category to one topic (Technology, Sports, Health) and the entire feed reflects that vertical, letting you test a category page renderer in isolation.
  • Card layout testing: vary the summary length or truncate it at different character counts in your component to check how your news card handles short versus long descriptions.
  • Sorting: the publishedAt field sorts directly as an ISO string, so articles.sort((a, b) => b.publishedAt.localeCompare(a.publishedAt)) gives you newest-first.
  • Stable fixtures: if you need the same data across test runs, copy the generated JSON into a fixture file rather than regenerating each time.