GitHub Readme.md
This is a Mastodon bot that sends out a welcome toot (DM) to new users, brought to you by jawns.club.
Because Mastodon's API doesn't currently have a route for getting an array of accounts in an instance,
this bot queries the followers of an account and pages through for any have been created in the
last x days (see configuration below). This means that you'll want ACCOUNT_ID
to be an account
that is auto-followed by all new users.
Hosting the bot on Heroku is probably the easiest (and cheapest, it's free!) way to go. There's only a few steps:
Requires:
git clone git@github.com:indyhall/mastodon-welcome-bot.git
pip install -r requirements.txt
(you'll probably want to setup a virtualenv for this)cp .env.dist .env
.env
file (see definitions below)python run.py
The application uses the following environment variables.
name required default description ACCESS_TOKEN yes n/a the access token for the Mastodon account that you want the toots to come from DAYS_SINCE no 1 how many days back of new users you want to go INSTANCE_BASE_URL yes n/a the base url of the Mastodon instance you want to run this for (ex: "https://jawns.club") TOOT_TEMPLATE yes n/a the template of the toot that you want to send out. Jinja2 syntax is used here and you can use any of theAccount
variables
DEBUG
no
false
boolean (either "true" or "false") for debug mode. If true, won't actually send out the toots, will just print the message for each to stdout
ACCOUNT_ID
yes
n/a
the account ID that you want to pull followers from
This can be copy/pasted into the TOOT_TEMPLATE environment variable. Note that \n\n
denotes a line break, as the entire var must remain on one line. Total characters cannot exceed 500, including those line breaks.
@{{ username }} Hi, and welcome to jawns.club!\n\nHere are a few handy tips:\n\n- This is a great (non-technical) intro to the Mastodon platform: https://bit.ly/2zk8t8c\n\n- Our "local" timeline is the real magic of jawns.club: https://bit.ly/2PDYyl3\n\n- Some less obvious ways to find people: https://bit.ly/2MMN2Xz\n\n- Install a free mobile app! Many people like Tootdon (iOS and Android).\n\n- Asking questions is okay and encouraged! We (@mods) are here to help.\n\nEnjoy :)