Automating Mastodon Posts with GitHub Actions

Configure GitHub for Mastodon Publishing

1. Prepare Your Mastodon Account

Generate a Mastodon API Key

• Go to your Mastodon account.
• Navigate to Preferences > Development.
• Create a new application:
  • Application name: GitHub-Integration
  • Scopes: profile (default), write:statuses
• Click Submit.
• Click the newly created GitHub-Integration application.
• Navigate and note Your access token.

2. Create a GitHub Repository

Create a New Repository

• Go to GitHub and create a new repository.
• Give it a meaningful name (e.g., blog).

Set Up the Repository Structure

• Clone the repository to your local machine:

  git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/<repository-name>.git
  cd <repository-name>

It's always a best practice to create a branch and work from it.

  git branch <branch-name> initial-build
  git checkout <branch-name>

After creating the folder, the repository structure should look like this:

  .
  ├── articles
  ├── LICENSE
  └── README.md

3. Add Your Mastodon API Key to GitHub Secrets

Go to Repository Settings

• Navigate to "Settings" > "Secrets and variables" > "Actions" > "New repository secret".

Add a Secret

• Name the secret "MASTODON_TOKEN".

• Paste the "Mastodon" API key from the previous step.

• Set up the folder structure for GitHub Actions workflows:
  

  mkdir -p .github/workflows
  touch .github/workflows/mastodon-publisher.yml

  .
  ├── .github
  │   └── workflows
  │       └── mastodon-publisher.yml
  ├── articles
  ├── LICENSE
  └── README.md

Configure mastodon-publisher.yml

• Update the "mastodon-publisher.yml" file with the following contents:

  name: Mastodon Publisher

  on:
    push:
      branches:
        - "**"

  jobs:
    publish:
      runs-on: ubuntu-latest

      steps:
        - name: Checkout code
          uses: actions/checkout@v4

        - name: Mastodon Post on GitHub Actions
          id: mastodon_toot
          uses: cbrgm/mastodon-github-action@v2
          with:
            access-token: ${{ secrets.MASTODON_TOKEN }}
            url: 'https://mastodon.social'
            message: "Hello from GitHub Actions!"

        - name: Get toot information
          run: |
            echo "Toot ID: ${{ steps.mastodon_toot.outputs.id }}"
            echo "Toot URL: ${{ steps.mastodon_toot.outputs.url }}"
            echo "Scheduled at: ${{ steps.mastodon_toot.outputs.scheduled_at }}"

Summary

• The "mastodon-publisher.yml" workflow automates publishing Markdown articles located in the articles directory to your Mastodon account.

5. Push the branch to GitHub

• Execute

git add --all
git commit -m "feat: add GitHub Actions workflow for publishing to Mastodon" \
  -m "Configure automated publishing workflow."
git push origin <branch-name>

6. Create a Pull Request (PR)

Go to Your Repository in GitHub

• Visit your repository on GitHub.

Navigate to the "Pull Requests" Tab

• Click on the "Pull Requests" tab at the top of the repository page.

Click "New Pull Request"

• Select the "New Pull Request" button.

Select Branches

• Base branch: Choose the branch you want to merge into (e.g., main or production).
• Compare branch: Select the <branch-name> branch.

Review Changes

• Review the list of commits and the files changed to ensure they are correct.

Add a Title and Description

• Provide a concise and descriptive title (e.g., feat: Add GitHub Actions for Mastodon publishing).
• Add any necessary details in the description box (e.g., reasons for changes, references to issues, etc.).

Review and Approve the PR

• Self-Review or Request Reviews.

Merge the Pull Request

• Navigate to the PR you just created.
• Click "Merge Pull Request".
• Click "Confirm merge".

7. Test and Validate the Workflow

• The workflow will trigger automatically once a push or merge is made. You can apply conditional logic to refine when it should run, ensuring it only triggers for specific events or branches.