(I just can't bring myself to say "toot".)
mstdn is a yanky shell script to let me post to
Mastodon from the command-line. It's similar in
spirit to my twitter cli
tool, but being
in its infancy right now, it only allows posting an
update (with media).
mstdn is written in shell, but it requires curl.
To install the command and manual page somewhere convenient, run make install; the Makefile defaults to '/usr/local' but you can change the PREFIX:
$ make PREFIX=~ install
Please see the manual page for all details:
NAME
mstdn -- send a mastodon update
SYNOPSIS
mstdn [-hiv] [-d descr] [-m media] [-s server] [-t file]
DESCRIPTION
mstdn is a very simple tool to send a Mastodon update to the given server
- nothing else. The message to send is read from STDIN; the account to
post as is defined via the access token found in the file passed to -t.
OPTIONS
The following options are supported by mstdn:
-d descr Use the given description for the media to be uploaded via -m.
Use quotes for strings including spaces.
-h Print a short usage statement and exit.
-i Print the resulting message ID.
-m media Upload and attach the given media (picture or video).
-s server Post the update to this Mastodon server. Default:
mstdn.social
-t file Read the access token from this file. Default:
~/.mstdn/<server>
-v Be verbose. Can be specified multiple times to increase ver-
bosity.
AUTHORIZATION
In order to use mstdn, you will need to get an access token and place it
into a file. The token can be retrieved by going to Preferences->Devel-
opment on your Mastodon server and adding a "new application". The
application will only need the "write:media" and "write:statuses" privi-
leges. After creating the application, you should be able to copy the
"access token" from the application details.
EXAMPLES
The following examples illustrate common usage of this tool.
To send a simple message to the default Mastodon server reading the
access token from the default location:
echo "I can't believe I used the word 'toot'." | mstdn
To post the contents of the file 'msg' together with the image 'file.jp'
to the 'chaos.social' instance using an access token from the file
'~/mytoken':
mstdn -t ~/mytoken -s chaos.social -m file.jpg <msg
EXIT STATUS
The mstdn utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
ENVIRONMENT
The following environment variables affect the execution of this tool:
MASTODON_SERVER The Mastodon server to post the update to. The -s flag
overrides this value.
TOKEN_FILE The file to read the access token from. The -t flag
overrides this value. If not specified, then this value
defaults to the pathname ~/.mstdn/${MASTODON_SERVER}.
HISTORY
mstdn was originally written by Jan Schaumann <jschauma@netmeister.org>
in December 2022.
BUGS
Please file bugs and feature requests via GitHub pull requests and issues
or by emailing the author.