Fairpost

Fairpost helps you manage users social media feeds from a single entry point, using Node. It supports Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.

A Feed is just a folder on disk, and all subfolders are Source Posts, containing at least one text file (the post body) and optionally images or video. The Source Post will be transformed into real posts for each connected platform.

Fairpost is opinionated, meaning, it will decide how a Source Post with contents can best be presented as a Post on each platform.

For each platform, you'll have to register the app on the platform. This usually results in an AppId and AppSecret or something similar, which should be stored in global config.

Then for each user, you'll have to allow the app to post on their behalf. This is usually done via an online (oauth) consent page in a webbrowser.

Commonly, you would call this script every day or week for every user. Fairpost can then automatically prepare the folders, schedule the next post using a certain interval and publish any post when it is due. All the user has to do is add folders with content.

Or, if you prefer, you can manually publish one specific folder as posts on all supported and enabled platforms at once, or just one post on one platform, etcetera.

Setting up

# install
npm install

# compile typescript code
npm run build

# copy and edit fairpost config file
cp .env.dist .env && nano .env

# run
./fairpost.js help

Set up platforms

Read how to set up various social media platforms in the docs.

Create a user and connect a platform

Read how to connect various social media platforms in the docs; but in general, the steps are

# create a user foobar
./fairpost.js create-user --userid=foobar

# edit the users .env, finetune settings
# and enable platform `bla`
nano users/foobar/.env

# connect platform `bla` to user `foobar`
./fairpost.js @foobar setup-platform --platform=bla

Feed planning

Prepare

fairpost.js prepare-posts

Sources need to be prepared (iow turned into posts) before they can be published to a platform. Each platform, as defined in src/platforms, will handle the folder contents by itself. It may decide to modify the media (eg, scale images) before posting, or not to post the folder (eg, when it only contains images and the platform is youtube). Finally, it will add a json file describing the post for that platform in the folder.

Schedule

fairpost.js schedule-next-post

The next post can then be scheduled. For each platform, if there is not already a scheduled post, this will update the json file in one post to set the status to scheduled, and set the schedule date. By default the date will be FAIRPOST_FEED_INTERVAL days after the last post for that platform, or now, whichever is latest.

Publish

fairpost.js publish-due-posts

This will publish any scheduled posts that are past their due date.

Other commands

Other commands and --arguments may help you to, for example, immediately publish a certain post to a certain platform if you like.

Refresh tokens

Access and refresh tokens for various platforms may expire sooner or later. Before you do anything, try fairpost.js @userid refresh-platforms. Eventually, even refresh tokens may expire, and you will have to run fairpost.js @userid setup-platform --platform=bla again to get a new pair of tokens.

Cli

# basic commands:
fairpost: help
fairpost: @userid get-user
fairpost: @userid get-feed
fairpost: @userid setup-platform --platform=xxx
fairpost: @userid setup-platforms [--platforms=xxx,xxx]
fairpost: @userid test-platform --platform=xxx
fairpost: @userid test-platforms [--platforms=xxx,xxx]
fairpost: @userid refresh-platform --platform=xxx
fairpost: @userid refresh-platforms [--platforms=xxx,xxx]
fairpost: @userid get-platform --platform=xxx
fairpost: @userid get-platforms [--platforms=xxx,xxx]
fairpost: @userid get-source --source=xxx
fairpost: @userid get-sources [--sources=xxx,xxx]
fairpost: @userid get-post --post=xxx:xxx
fairpost: @userid get-posts [--status=xxx] [--sources=xxx,xxx] [--platforms=xxx,xxx] 
fairpost: @userid prepare-post --post=xxx:xxx
fairpost: @userid schedule-post --post=xxx:xxx --date=xxxx-xx-xx 
fairpost: @userid schedule-posts [--sources=xxx,xxx|--source=xxx] [--platforms=xxx,xxx|--platform=xxx] --date=xxxx-xx-xx
fairpost: @userid schedule-next-post [--date=xxxx-xx-xx] [--platforms=xxx,xxx|--platform=xxx] 
fairpost: @userid publish-post --post=xxx:xxx [--dry-run]
fairpost: @userid publish-posts [--sources=xxx,xxx|--source=xxx] [--platforms=xxx,xxx|--platform=xxx]

# feed planning:
fairpost: @userid prepare-posts  [--sources=xxx,xxx|--source=xxx] [--platforms=xxx,xxx|--platform=xxx]
fairpost: @userid schedule-next-posts [--date=xxxx-xx-xx] [--sources=xxx,xxx] [--platforms=xxx,xxx] 
fairpost: @userid publish-due-posts [--sources=xxx,xxx] [--platforms=xxx,xxx] [--dry-run]

# admin only:
fairpost: create-user --userid=xxx
fairpost: get-user --userid=xxx
fairpost: serve

Common arguments

# Set the cli output format to pure json
fairpost.js [command] [arguments] --output=json

# Enable trace logging output to the console (overriding .env)
fairpost.js [command] [arguments] --verbose

Add a new platform

To add support for a new platform, add a class to src/platforms extending src/classes/Platform. You want to override at least the method preparePost(source) and publishPost(post,dryrun).

Then import your class and add a platformId for your platform in src/platforms/index.ts and enable your platformId in your .env.

Similarly, you can copy one platform, rename it and edit it to your likings, give it a different platformId and enable that.

For more detailed instructions look at How to add a new platform

Oh, and send me a PR if you create anything useful :-)