Let's POSSE to Mastodon with a Feed and a GitHub Action
Published: 2023-12-19 10:08:42

---
title: Let's POSSE to Mastodon with a Feed and a GitHub Action
published: true
date: 2023-01-07 12:49:09 UTC
tags: 
canonical_url: https://nicolas-hoizey.com/articles/2023/01/07/let-s-posse-to-mastodon-with-a-feed-and-a-github-action/
---

After building a Node script [for my own POSSE needs](https://nicolas-hoizey.com/notes/2022/11/26/1/), I thought it would be good if other people could also use it. I knew not many people would be able to use the script as-is, so I built a GitHub Action that is much simpler to use, without losing any feature, even gaining some!

You should already know that I'm a true believer of [IndieWeb](https://indieweb.org/) and [POSSE](https://indieweb.org/POSSE), as [many contents I already published](https://nicolas-hoizey.com/archives/?query=indieweb) show.

You could for example replace "Medium" with many other services, including Twitter and Mastodon, in [Medium is only an edge server of your POSSE CDN, your own blog is the origin](https://nicolas-hoizey.com/articles/2017/11/09/medium-is-only-an-edge-server-of-your-posse-cdn-your-own-blog-is-the-origin/).

I also gave a talk (in French) about IndieWeb and POSSE 3 years ago: [Ne vous laissez plus déPOSSEder de vos contenus !](https://nicolas-hoizey.com/talks/2019/10/10/ne-vous-laissez-plus-deposseder-de-vos-contenus/).

Did you see Heydon Pickering's “Why The IndieWeb?” episode of the Webbed Briefs?  
[You should!](https://briefs.video/videos/why-the-indieweb/)

Every time I talk about IndieWeb and POSSE, a lot of people reply with “but it's not easy”… and they are right!

As [Max Böck recently said](https://nicolas-hoizey.com/links/2022/11/15/the-indieweb-for-everyone/):

> Owning your content on the web should not require extensive technical knowledge or special skills. It should be just as easy as signing up for a cellphone plan.

So…

I've developed **a GitHub Action for anyone to POSSE their content to Mastodon as easily as possible** : [GitHub Action: Any feed to Mastoson](https://github.com/marketplace/actions/any-feed-to-mastodon)

It currently requires a JSON Feed for input, so you might still have to build this one, if you "only" have a RSS or Atom feed. I hope to [support these also in the future](https://github.com/nhoizey/github-action-jsonfeed-to-mastodon/issues/16) as they're often available out of the box in content management tools/platforms (even on Mastodon), but there are multiple variants so it's not easy to deal with.

I know there are already other ways to push content from RSS/Atom feeds to Mastodon, but I didn't want to rely on a third party service like IFTTT or Zapier. Ok, GitHub is also a 3rd party, but my code and content are already there anyway<sup><a href="https://nicolas-hoizey.com/articles/2023/01/07/let-s-posse-to-mastodon-with-a-feed-and-a-github-action/#fn1" id="fnref1">[1]</a></sup>. 🤷‍♂️

I won't paraphrase the Action's documentation, so go read it, use it, and tell me if it's useful:  
[GitHub Action: Any feed to Mastoson](https://github.com/marketplace/actions/any-feed-to-mastodon)

If you have some ideas, bugs or anything to discuss about this action, [GitHub issues](https://github.com/nhoizey/github-action-feed-to-mastodon/issues) are the right place.

Also, I know my code is not state of the art, so feel free to open issues, or even better pull requests, if you think you help improve it.

HTH.

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<p>and 99% of the Action is a Node script, so I can move anywhere else if necessary. <a href="https://nicolas-hoizey.com/articles/2023/01/07/let-s-posse-to-mastodon-with-a-feed-and-a-github-action/#fnref1">↩︎</a></p>
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