Social

Mastodon Cross-Post

Each newly published article turns into a public status on your Mastodon server

What it does

Mastodon Cross-Post announces new writing on the fediverse for you. The moment an article moves from draft or scheduled to published, whether from the editor, a bulk action, the REST API or the scheduler, the plugin composes a status and sends it to the server you named in the settings. The text opens with the article title, adds the excerpt when there is one, and closes with the public address of the article on your custom domain, or on your subdomain if no domain is verified yet. Visibility is always public. Every request carries a key derived from the article, so if the same article is sent again your server returns the first status instead of making another. Each attempt shows up as a small Mastodon badge next to the article in your posts list.

Who it's for

Writers, researchers and open-source maintainers whose audience follows them on Mastodon rather than on the big commercial networks. It fits people who keep an active fediverse account and are tired of pasting every fresh link by hand. You need an account on a public instance and the right to register an application there, because the token is issued from your own account's developer area, not by VeloCMS.

How it works

In Mastodon, go to Settings, Development and choose New Application. Tick the write:statuses scope, save, and copy the access token it shows you.
In your admin, open the plugin, enter your server address such as https://mastodon.social together with that token, and save. The form will not accept one field without the other.
Publish an article. Only the change into the published state starts the plugin, once for that article.
The plugin assembles the status text and posts it to the /api/v1/statuses endpoint of the server you configured.
The outcome is stored against the article. A successful badge links to the new status, and a failed one offers a Retry sync button.

Settings you configure

Instance URL: The base address of the server that hosts your account, for example https://mastodon.social. If you leave out https:// it is added for you, and trailing slashes are trimmed.
Access Token: Generated in Mastodon under Settings, Development, New Application, with write:statuses ticked. It is saved encrypted, and when you return to the form a placeholder stands in for it.

What it can access

When an article is published the plugin reads its title, slug, excerpt and the ID of your site, which it uses to work out the public link. It does not look at members, orders or unpublished drafts. Requests go only to the instance address you supplied, and the network layer refuses private, local and non-web addresses. The token is encrypted at rest and never sent back to the browser.

Permissions

Read post title, URL, and excerpt when a post is published
Make network calls to your configured Mastodon instance
Store your Mastodon access token encrypted

External network access

This plugin makes requests to the following domains:

Capabilities

posts:read
network:fetch
ui:settings
post:afterPublish

Screenshots

Mastodon Cross-Post admin settings form with an instance URL field and an access token field — Add your Mastodon instance URL and access token to cross-post new posts.

Honest limits

A status is sent when an article switches from draft or scheduled to published. Editing a live article or saving it again sends nothing new.
Articles that were already live before you set the plugin up are not announced afterwards.
If title, excerpt and link together run past 480 characters, the excerpt is left out. A very long title is cut at 430 characters and ends with an ellipsis.
Statuses are always public. Unlisted or followers-only visibility and content warnings are not available.
The plugin does not check who can read an article, so a members-only piece is announced with its link like any other.
No image or other media is uploaded alongside the status.
A server on a private network, or one reached through localhost, cannot be used because those addresses are blocked.
Unpublishing or deleting the article on your site leaves the status on Mastodon untouched.
A request that gets no reply within 10 seconds counts as failed and waits for you to retry it.

Frequently asked questions

Can retrying a failed attempt create a duplicate status?

No. Each request includes an Idempotency-Key built from the article's ID, and Mastodon hands back the original status when it sees the same key again. That is why the retry button is safe to press.

Does it work with instances other than mastodon.social?

Yes. Any instance address works, provided it is reachable on the public internet and the token was issued by that same server.

What if my token is revoked or the server is offline?

Your article still goes live as normal. The attempt is marked failed with the error Mastodon sent, or as a network error, and you can retry once the cause is fixed.

Where can I check whether a status went out?

Your posts list shows a Mastodon badge on every article the plugin tried to share, and a successful one links to the status. Failures are also collected on the Sync activity page under Integrations.

Specifications

Category: Social
Price: Included
Version: 1.0.0
Source: First-party

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