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Edited 100d ago
fedidev
Excited to share that Fedify CLI is now available on Scoop for #Windows users! You can easily install it with scoop install fedify. One more way to get started with #ActivityPub development!
Build your own #fediverse server with #Fedify!
Fedify is a #TypeScript framework that simplifies #ActivityPub implementation. Want to build a federated server without the complexity? Fedify has got you covered!
✨ Key features
Complete protocol support including WebFinger, HTTP Signatures, and NodeInfo
Enhanced interoperability with Object Integrity Proofs and Linked Data Signatures
Type-safe Activity Vocabulary API to prevent development mistakes
Reliable delivery with automatic retries and message queues
Full observability through OpenTelemetry integration
Multiple backend support: Redis, PostgreSQL, AMQP
Seamless integration with popular web frameworks: Express, Hono, Fresh, SvelteKit
Comprehensive logging and tracing
Debug ActivityPub in real-time with ephemeral inbox server
Inspect ActivityPub objects and actors with lookup tool
Tunnel your local server for development
🚀 Runtime support
📚 Easy to learn
Extensive docs
Step-by-step tutorials
Community support via Matrix & Discord
Available under the #MIT license—free and open source!
After reviewing FEP-5624: Per-object reply control policies and GoToSocial's interaction policy spec, I find myself leaning toward the latter for long-term considerations, though both have merit.
FEP-5624 is admirably focused and simpler to implement, which I appreciate. However, #GoToSocial's approach seems to offer some architectural advantages:
The three-tier permission model (allow/require approval/deny) feels more flexible than binary allow/deny
Separating approval objects from interactions appears more secure against forgery
The explicit handling of edge cases (mentioned users, post authors) provides clearer semantics
The extensible framework allows for handling diverse interaction types, not just replies
I wonder if creating an #FEP that extracts GoToSocial's interaction policy design into a standalone standard might be worthwhile. It could potentially serve as a more comprehensive foundation for access control in #ActivityPub.
This is merely my initial impression though. I'd be curious to hear other developers' perspectives on these approaches.
#FEP5624 #fedidev #fediverse #replycontrol #interactionpolicy
I've been wrestling with implementing #multilingual content support in Hackers' Pub, our #ActivityPub-powered platform for software engineers.
While ActivityPub theoretically supports multilingual content through the contentMap property, the reality is that most server implementations (Mastodon, Misskey, etc.) don't properly handle this content as of April 2025. This creates a significant challenge for us.
We want our users to share their knowledge in multiple languages, but we need to ensure compatibility with existing ActivityPub servers. I'm considering several approaches:
Creating separate posts for each language with clear language indicators, linking them through inReplyTo relationships (so translations appear as replies to the original post)
Using the primary language in content while storing translations in contentMap
Adding "View in other languages" links at the bottom of each post
Implementing inline language dividers that degrade gracefully on non-supporting servers, for example:
<div lang="en"> <h3>English</h3> <p>This is the English content…</p></div><hr><div lang="ko"> <h3>한국어</h3> <p>한국어 내용입니다…</p></div>
I'm leaning toward a hybrid approach—showing content in the user's preferred language when possible while providing easy access to other language versions.
Has anyone tackled this problem effectively? I'd love to hear about your experiences or ideas for making multilingual content work well in the fediverse, especially when dealing with server implementations that don't fully support ActivityPub's multilingual features.
I've been considering what to add in the next version of BotKit (v0.2.0) and wanted to share my current plans. After reviewing feedback and examining the #ActivityPub ecosystem, I've identified three key features that would significantly enhance the framework's capabilities:
Custom emoji support. This would allow bots to use server-defined custom emojis in their messages, making communication more expressive and allowing better integration with instance culture.
Emoji reactions. I plan to implement both sending and receiving emoji reactions to messages. This provides a lightweight interaction model that many users prefer for simple acknowledgments or responses. This would manifest as new event handlers (like Bot.onReaction) and methods (like Message.react()).
Quote posts. The ability to reference other posts with commentary is an important discourse feature in the fediverse. Supporting both sending quotes and detecting when bot posts have been quoted would enable more sophisticated conversational patterns.
These additions should make #BotKit more capable while maintaining its simple, developer-friendly API. I expect implementation to involve extending the Message class and adding new Text processing capabilities, all while keeping backward compatibility with existing bots. Having built both Hollo and Hackers' Pub, I already have deep familiarity with how various ActivityPub implementations handle these features across the fediverse. I welcome any community feedback on priorities or implementation details before I begin coding.
As someone who has developed several #ActivityPub software implementations (Fedify, Hollo, BotKit, and Hackers' Pub), I believe one of the most frustrating features to implement in the #fediverse is #custom_emoji.
The challenges are numerous:
First, there's no standardization. ActivityPub specifications don't define how custom emoji should work, leading to inconsistent implementations across different servers like Mastodon and Misskey.
Rendering is particularly problematic. Emojis must display properly across different contexts (in text, as reactions, in emoji pickers) while maintaining quality at various sizes. Animated emojis add another layer of complexity.
Perhaps most concerning is the poor #accessibility. Most implementations simply use the emoji code (like :party_blob:) as the alt text, which provides no meaningful information to screen reader users (in particular, non-English speakers) about what the emoji actually depicts or means.
What really dampens my motivation to implement this feature is knowing I'm investing significant effort into something that ultimately creates accessibility barriers. It's disheartening to work hard on a feature that excludes part of the community.
Great news for the wafrn app !!
As a culmination of the big journey of the past weeks, the Wafrn App is now listed in the official @unifiedpush documentation as one of the apps that support UnifiedPush
Check it at https://unifiedpush.org/users/apps/
#WafrnDev #FediDev #UnifiedPush #Degoogle #FreeServices
Edited 190d ago
We're excited to introduce emoji reactions in the upcoming #BotKit 0.2.0 release!
With the new Message.react() method, your bot can now react to messages using standard Unicode #emojis:
await message.react(emoji`👍`);
#Custom_emoji support is also included, allowing your bot to react with server-specific emojis:
const emojis = bot.addCustomEmojis({ // Use a remote image URL: yesBlob: { url: "https://cdn3.emoji.gg/emojis/68238-yesblob.png", mediaType: "image/png", }, // Use a local image file: noBlob: { file: `${import.meta.dirname}/emojis/no_blob.png`, mediaType: "image/webp", },});await message.react(emojis.yesBlob);
Reactions can be removed using the AuthorizedReaction.unreact() method:
const reaction = await message.react(emoji`❤️`);await reaction.unreact();
Want to try these features now? You can install the development version from JSR today:
deno add jsr:@fedify/botkit@0.2.0-dev.84+c997c6a6
We're looking forward to seeing how your bots express themselves with this new feature!
PieFed adds PassKeys! As in, log in only with your passkey. Not just as a 2FA addition to your username/password.
I've been thinking about client-server interactions in the #fediverse. #ActivityPub #C2S isn't widely used, and most clients rely on Mastodon-compatible APIs instead.
What if we created a new standardized API based on GraphQL + Relay for client-server communication, while keeping ActivityPub for server-to-server federation?
The Mastodon-compatible API lacks formal schema definitions for code generation and type checking, which hurts developer productivity. And ActivityPub C2S is honestly too cumbersome to use directly from client apps.
#GraphQL would give us type safety, efficient data fetching (only get what you need), and the ability to evolve the API without breaking clients. #Relay's features for pagination, caching, and optimistic updates seem perfect for social apps.
Would this be valuable to our community? What challenges do you see? How might we handle backward compatibility? And should this be formalized as an FEP?
Curious what others think about this approach.
If you're interested in building your own #ActivityPub server but don't know where to start, I recommend checking out #Fedify's #tutorial Creating your own federated microblog. It provides a comprehensive, step-by-step guide that walks you through building a fully functional federated application. Perfect for developers who want to dive into the #fediverse!
#Fedify 1.6 is approaching with three major enhancements: RFC 9421 HTTP Message Signatures support with double-knocking for seamless backward compatibility, a new builder pattern for better code organization in large applications, and native #Cloudflare #Workers support for serverless deployments. These additions strengthen Fedify's standards compliance while expanding deployment flexibility across different environments. Stay tuned for the official release! 🚀
#ActivityPub #fedidev #fediverse #RFC9421 #CloudflareWorkers
Had a wonderful time today at our second FediDev KR #sprint (@sprints.fedidev.kr) gathering at Turing's Apple (@TuringAppleDev) in #Seoul!
We spent the day contributing to various #fediverse open source projects including @fedify, @hollo, and Hackers' Pub. It was fantastic to see the community come together to build and improve tools for the decentralized social web.
Our participants made some great contributions, and you can read all about what we accomplished in today's blog post.
Looking forward to our next sprint!
Edited 171d ago
Did you know? #Fedify provides #documentation optimized for LLMs through the llms.txt standard.
Available endpoints:
https://fedify.dev/llms.txt — Core documentation overview
https://fedify.dev/llms-full.txt — Complete documentation dump
Useful for training #AI assistants on #ActivityPub/#fediverse development, building documentation chatbots, or #LLM-powered dev tools.
🎉 Big thanks to @2chanhaeng for his first contribution to #Fedify! He implemented the new fedify webfinger command in PR #278, which allows isolated #WebFinger lookups for testing configurations. This addresses the need for developers to test WebFinger functionality without performing comprehensive object retrieval.
The contribution includes:
A new fedify webfinger <handle> command that accepts @user@domain format handles or URIs
Clean JSON output of WebFinger JRD results
Proper error handling for invalid handles and lookup failures
Complete #CLI integration with help text and usage examples
This was originally filed as issue #260 and marked as a good first issue—perfect for newcomers to learn the codebase structure while contributing meaningful functionality. The PR has been merged and will be included in the upcoming Fedify 1.8.0 release.
We appreciate all first-time contributors who help make Fedify better for the entire #fediverse community. Welcome aboard, ChanHaeng!
🎉 Huge shoutout to two amazing contributors from Korea's #OSSCA program who've made excellent contributions to #Fedify!
👏 @gaebalgom tackled a tricky terminal compatibility issue in PR #282, fixing the fedify node command's favicon display on terminal emulators without truecolor support (#168). His solution elegantly detects terminal capabilities and falls back to 256-color mode when needed—ensuring a great experience across different environments.
🌟 @joonnot enhanced Fedify's #WebFinger functionality in PR #281 by adding a configurable maxRedirection option to the lookupWebFinger() function (#248). He transformed a hardcoded limitation into a flexible, user-customizable parameter while maintaining perfect backward compatibility.
Both delivered thoughtful, well-implemented solutions that showcase the quality of contributions coming from the OSSCA program. Welcome to the Fedify community! 
#APx ActivityPub toolkit consists of two packages: apx_sdk (the main package) and apx_core.
The second one contains the most basic building blocks: keys, signatures, URIs, DIDs and encodings. It can be useful even if you already have a mature ActivityPub application and don't want to import the whole SDK. For example, there are implementations of FEP-8b32 and FEP-ef61 'ap' URIs.
Edited 99d ago
👋 Everyone: see what you think:
The Seven Deadly #Fediverse UX Sins Part 2: The Road To Redemption: https://www.timothychambers.net/2025/06/24/the-seven-deadly-fediverse-ux.html
Don't claim that these are final answers - but hope they help continue constructive motion to final answers!
cc: @renchap @dansup @cheeaun @scottjenson @newsmast @mike @andypiper @ricmac @stevebate @evan @laurenshof @pfefferle @fediversenews #fedidev #mastodev
Edited 140d ago
We're pleased to announce that #Node.js support has been merged and will be available in #BotKit 0.3.0.
Now you can build your #ActivityPub bots with both #Deno and Node.js, giving you more flexibility in choosing your preferred runtime environment.
Stay tuned for BotKit 0.3.0!
We are pleased to announce the release of #Fedify 1.7.0. This release was expedited at the request of the Ghost team, who are actively using Fedify for their #ActivityPub implementation. As a result, several features originally planned for this version have been moved to Fedify 1.8.0 to ensure timely delivery of the most critical improvements.
This release focuses on enhancing message queue functionality and improving compatibility with ActivityPub servers through refined HTTP signature handling.
Native retry mechanism support
This release introduces support for native retry mechanisms in message queue backends. The new MessageQueue.nativeRetrial property allows queue implementations to indicate whether they provide built-in retry functionality, enabling Fedify to optimize its retry behavior accordingly.
When nativeRetrial is set to true, Fedify will delegate retry handling to the queue backend rather than implementing its own retry logic. This approach reduces overhead and leverages the proven retry mechanisms of established queue systems.
Current implementations with native retry support include:
DenoKvMessageQueue — utilizes Deno KV's automatic retry with exponential backoff
WorkersMessageQueue — leverages Cloudflare Queues' automatic retry and dead-letter queue features
AmqpMessageQueue — can now be configured to use AMQP broker's native retry mechanisms
The InProcessMessageQueue continues to use Fedify's internal retry mechanism, while ParallelMessageQueue inherits the retry behavior from its wrapped queue.
AMQP message queue improvements
Alongside Fedify 1.7.0, we have also released @fedify/amqp 0.3.0. This release adds the nativeRetrial option to AmqpMessageQueueOptions, enabling you to leverage your AMQP broker's built-in retry mechanisms. When enabled, this option allows the AMQP broker to handle message retries according to its configured policies, rather than relying on Fedify's internal retry logic.
Configurable double-knocking
The new FederationOptions.firstKnock option provides control over the HTTP Signatures specification used for the initial signature attempt when communicating with previously unknown servers.
Previously, the first knock for newly encountered servers always used RFC 9421 (HTTP Message Signatures), falling back to draft-cavage-http-signatures-12 if needed. With this release, you can now configure which specification to use for the first knock when communicating with unknown servers, with RFC 9421 remaining the default.
Summary
This release maintains Fedify's commitment to reliability and compatibility while laying the groundwork for more efficient message processing. The native retry mechanism support will particularly benefit applications using queue backends with sophisticated retry capabilities, while the double-knocking mechanism addresses real-world compatibility challenges in the ActivityPub ecosystem.
For detailed technical information about these changes, please refer to the changelog in the repository.
We're pleased to share that Encyclia has joined our success stories.
@encyclia bridges academic research to the #fediverse by making #ORCID researcher profiles and publications discoverable through #ActivityPub—built with #Fedify for seamless interoperability across Mastodon and other fediverse platforms.
This demonstrates Fedify's versatility beyond traditional social networking, helping specialized domains connect to the federated web.
We're also grateful for #Encyclia's sponsorship support, which helps make Fedify's development possible.
Learn more about Encyclia at https://encyclia.pub/. 📚
Excited to share that I've joined #OSSCA (Open Source Software Contribution Academy) as a mentor for the @fedify project!
OSSCA is a national program run by South Korea's NIPA (National IT Industry Promotion Agency) through their Open Source Software Support Center, aimed at fostering the next generation of open source contributors.
We're currently in the process of selecting around 20 mentees who will start contributing to #Fedify once the selection is complete. I've been busy preparing good first issues to help them get started on their open source journey.
Looking forward to working with these new contributors and seeing what amazing things we can build together!
We're thrilled to highlight five outstanding contributions from the Korean Open Source Contribution Academy (#OSSCA) program participants who have been working on #Fedify! Their dedication and effort have significantly enhanced our #ActivityPub server framework.
First up is @nyeong with his monumental #318 PR, implementing a SQLite-based key–value store to address #274. This contribution adds the SqliteKvStore class with full cross-runtime support for Node.js, Deno, and Bun through the new @fedify/sqlite package. His implementation includes atomic operations, TTL support, comprehensive test coverage, and careful attention to SQL injection prevention. This enables developers to use SQLite as a persistent storage backend while maintaining compatibility with Fedify's existing KvStore API—a crucial feature for production deployments!
Next, @crohasang delivered an excellent quality-of-life improvement with #341 PR, fixing #257. He enhanced the CLI to properly respect TTY status and the NO_COLOR environment variable, implementing intelligent color control across all CLI commands. The solution involved switching from @cliffy/ansi/colors to @std/fmt/colors, creating a helper function using Deno.inspect() to handle object formatting, and ensuring colors are correctly disabled when output is redirected to files. This makes the CLI much more pipe-friendly and suitable for automated workflows!
@menele contributed a thoughtful enhancement with #342 PR, addressing #191. She updated the fedify inbox command to display not just the activity type, but also the type of object contained within each activity—transforming output like "Create" into the more informative "Create(Note)" or "Undo" into "Undo(Follow)". This seemingly simple change required making the display function asynchronous to fetch the enclosed objects, significantly improving the debugging experience for developers!
@woaol tackled an important developer experience issue with #329 PR, solving #306. Previously, the fedify init command would often install outdated versions of Fedify packages like @fedify/redis because version numbers were hardcoded in the CLI. They created a getLatestVersion() function that dynamically retrieves package versions from local metadata files, ensuring that developers always get the latest versions of all Fedify packages when initializing a new project. This improvement includes comprehensive test coverage and eliminates the frustration of starting a project with outdated dependencies!
Finally, @kodingwarrior made a significant contribution with #309 PR, implementing #269—NestJS integration! They created the @fedify/nestjs package with a FedifyModule that seamlessly integrates Fedify into NestJS applications. This includes proper middleware implementation, dependency injection support through NestJS's module system, and compatibility with both CommonJS and ESM environments. This opens up Fedify to the large NestJS developer community, making it easier than ever to build ActivityPub-enabled applications with this popular enterprise framework!
These contributions showcase the incredible talent and dedication of the OSSCA participants. From core infrastructure improvements to developer experience enhancements, each contribution makes Fedify better for the entire community. Thank you all for your hard work and welcome to the Fedify contributor family! 🚀
We're looking forward to seeing more amazing contributions from the OSSCA program and the broader community. If you're interested in contributing to Fedify, check out our GitHub repository and join us in building the future of federated social web! 🌟
Lots of talk about Ghost today, and rightly so, but don’t forget that a little open source framework @fedify made the ActivityPub plugin possible.
Support open source!