Social media
A bot can write posts for LinkedIn, X, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky and Mastodon: "a LinkedIn post about the chargers we put up this year", or a routine that proposes two posts every Monday. You publish them yourself.
How a post goes
- The bot calls
social_postwith the platform, the text and maybe a link. It writes for the platform: short for X and Bluesky, longer for LinkedIn. - It becomes an approval card, Publish on LinkedIn, with the post in full and its length against the platform's limit ("139 of 3000 characters").
- You approve it, and the platform's own compose window opens in your browser with the post filled in. You press Post there. Huskarl never posts.
| Platform | When approved | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| the compose window, filled in | 3000 | |
| X | the compose window, filled in | 280, or 25 000 with X Premium |
| Bluesky | the compose window, filled in | 300 |
| Mastodon | the compose window on your server, filled in | 500 |
| facebook.com, or its share window for a link; the text is copied, to paste | 63 206 | |
| instagram.com; the text is copied, to paste, and you add the picture | 2200 |
Facebook and Instagram take no text from outside, so there the text is put on the clipboard. A post that is too long is refused before it becomes a card, and the bot is told to shorten it.
X counts as X does: a link is 23 characters whatever its length, letters
(æ, ø and å among them) and common punctuation 1, an emoji or a CJK character 2.
The card shows that count. With I have X Premium on in Settings → General
→ Social media (or huskarld social x-premium on), an X post may be 25 000
characters.
A post too long to fit in an address (a long one for LinkedIn or X Premium) opens the compose window empty, with the post on the clipboard to paste.
Why it works this way
- It is you posting. No platform account, key or API is involved, and no platform's terms are bent: Huskarl only opens a page you could open yourself, with the text in it.
- It always waits for you. A post is published in your name, so the card waits whatever the rules and mandates say.
- There is no undo window. Approving does not send anything, so the compose window opens at once rather than after the usual 30 seconds.
Mastodon
Posts open on your own server. Set it once in Settings → General → Social
media (mastodon.social, https://mastodon.social/@you or @you@server all
work), or with:
huskarld social mastodon-server mastodon.social
Until it is set, a Mastodon post is refused, and the bot asks you for it.
Not yet
- Posting through the platforms' own APIs, so that approving publishes. This needs agreements with LinkedIn and Meta.
- Following comments and messages and drafting replies.
- Pictures and video in the post itself.