mastodon

Call the Mastodon REST API with curl + jq. Two connector credentials are injected: $MASTODON_BASE_URL (the instance, e.g. https://mastodon.social) and $MASTODON_ACCESS_TOKEN. Every request sends the header Authorization: Bearer $MASTODON_ACCESS_TOKEN.

Errors come back as JSON {"error":"<message>"} — show it verbatim. 401 ("The access token is invalid") means the token is wrong/revoked → the user must re-connect the Mastodon connector. Posting needs the token to have the write (or write:statuses) scope.

Always confirm the token + account first (also gives the account id you need to list your own toots):

curl -sS "$MASTODON_BASE_URL/api/v1/accounts/verify_credentials" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MASTODON_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  | jq '{id, username, acct, display_name, followers: .followers_count, statuses: .statuses_count}'

Post a toot

Confirm with the user before posting publicly. Default visibility to unlisted unless they say post publicly; use public only on request.

STATUS_TEXT="Hello fediverse 👋 #introductions"
curl -sS -X POST "$MASTODON_BASE_URL/api/v1/statuses" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MASTODON_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: $(uuidgen)" \
  --data-urlencode "status=$STATUS_TEXT" \
  --data-urlencode "visibility=unlisted" \
  --data-urlencode "language=en" \
  | jq '{id, url, visibility, created_at}'

• visibility is one of public, unlisted, private, direct.
• Optional params: spoiler_text (content warning), in_reply_to_id (reply), sensitive=true, language (ISO 639-1).
• Idempotency-Key (any unique string; uuidgen here) prevents duplicate posts if the request is retried within ~1h. Use --data-urlencode so hashtags, emoji and newlines in the text are encoded correctly.
• Default post length is 500 chars (instance-configurable); longer text → 422 {"error":"Validation failed: Text ..."}.

List my recent toots + engagement

Use the id from verify_credentials:

ACCT_ID="ACCOUNT_ID"   # from verify_credentials
curl -sS "$MASTODON_BASE_URL/api/v1/accounts/$ACCT_ID/statuses?limit=20&exclude_replies=true&exclude_reblogs=true" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MASTODON_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  | jq '.[] | {id, url, boosts: .reblogs_count, favs: .favourites_count, replies: .replies_count, created_at}'

limit max 40. Other filters: only_media, pinned, tagged=<hashtag>.

Delete a toot

curl -sS -X DELETE "$MASTODON_BASE_URL/api/v1/statuses/STATUS_ID" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MASTODON_ACCESS_TOKEN" | jq '{id, deleted: true}'

Deleting returns the status with its source text so you can delete-and-redraft. 404 {"error":"Record not found"} = not yours or already gone.

Attaching media (optional)

Upload each image/video via POST $MASTODON_BASE_URL/api/v2/media (multipart/form-data, field file) to get a media id, then pass the ids as media_ids[] when posting the status. See the docs for the full media contract: https://docs.joinmastodon.org/methods/media/

Gotchas

• Federated: the API only ever targets $MASTODON_BASE_URL (the user's own instance). There is no global endpoint — a token from instance A won't work on instance B.
• Scopes: reading needs read (or read:accounts/read:statuses); posting/deleting needs write (or write:statuses). A 403 ("This action is outside the authorized scopes") means the token lacks a scope.
• Rate limits: Mastodon rate-limits per token; space out bulk posts or you'll get 429.
• verify_credentials returns HTML in fields like note; the plaintext source lives under the source object.

Record the output

After you successfully publish and obtain the live result URL, call the built-in publish_artifact tool ONCE so the user can track this deliverable in My Outputs:

publish_artifact(kind="message", channel="mastodon", title="<title>", url="<the REAL returned URL>", status="delivered")

Use the real returned URL — never fabricate one. Call it once per published item, only after delivery is confirmed; skip it (or use status="failed") if publishing failed. See _shared/artifacts.md.