Playing podcasts - is there an easier way?

Configuration Voice Assistant
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Alright, I’ve figured out how to play the most recent episode of a podcast on my Home Assistant Voice PE… but it’s multiple steps, and not obvious. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to simplify this?

  1. Fetch the podcast with Feedreader.
  2. Create an input_text helper to store the podcast episode URL
  3. Use an automation to respond to feedreader events, and store the podcast episode URL in a text helper:
    alias: "feedreader: Set NPR Up First episode URL"
description: ""
triggers:
  - trigger: event
    event_type: feedreader
    event_data:
      feed_url: >-
        https://feeds.npr.org/510318/podcast.xml
conditions: []
actions:
  - action: input_text.set_value
    metadata: {}
    data:
      value: >-
        {{
        trigger.event['data']['links']|selectattr('type','eq','audio/mpeg')|map(attribute='href')|first|trim('"')
        }}
    target:
      entity_id: input_text.npr_up_first_episode_url
mode: single
  4. Create an automation to play the podcast episode URL:
    alias: "Voice: play NPR up first"
description: ""
triggers:
  - trigger: conversation
    command:
      - "[play ][NPR ]up first"
conditions: []
actions:
  - action: media_player.play_media
    data:
      media_content_type: music
      announce: false
      media_content_id: "{{ states('input_text.npr_up_first_episode_url') }}"
    target:
      device_id: "{{ trigger.device_id }}"
mode: single