Mastodon to Jekyll Sync Setup

This repository now includes an automated system to sync your Mastodon posts to Jekyll blog posts.

How It Works

The GitHub Actions workflow (.github/workflows/mastodon-to-jekyll.yml) runs every 2 hours and:

1. Fetches your Mastodon RSS feed from https://aus.social/@lukesleeman.rss
2. Creates Jekyll markdown files in the _posts/ directory for new posts
3. Commits and pushes any new posts automatically

Go live date

The system automatically filters out posts before a “go live date”

Date Filtering

• Cutoff Date: Only processes posts after 2025-08-29T00:00:00Z
• Easy to Change: Update the CUTOFF_DATE variable in .github/scripts/config.js
• Prevents Spam: Won’t import your entire Mastodon history

Hashtag Filtering

You can configure the sync to only import posts that include a specific hashtag. This is useful if you want to be selective about which posts get synced to your blog.

To enable hashtag filtering, edit .github/scripts/config.js:

HASHTAG_FILTER: {
  // Set to true to only sync posts with a specific hashtag
  ENABLED: true,  // Change to true to enable filtering
  // The hashtag to filter by (without the # symbol)
  // Posts will only be synced if they contain this hashtag
  TAG: 'microblog'  // Change to your preferred hashtag
}

Behavior Options:

• ENABLED: false - Syncs all posts (default behavior)
• ENABLED: true - Only syncs posts containing the specified hashtag (e.g., #microblog)

Example:

• If TAG: 'microblog', only posts containing #microblog will be synced
• Change TAG to any hashtag you want (without the # symbol)
• Posts without the hashtag will be skipped and logged

What Gets Created

Each Mastodon post becomes a Jekyll post with:

• Layout: post
• Categories: [mastodon, microblog]
• Title: Intelligently generated from post content using enhanced title generation
• Date: Original post date from Mastodon
• Content: Full toot content plus link back to original
• Front matter: Includes mastodon_url for reference

Local Testing

You can test locally without creating files (dry run) by running

node .github/scripts/test-sync.js

Or create actual posts and download images by

node .github/scripts/sync-mastodon.js

Customisation Options

Changing Configuration

All settings are now in .github/scripts/config.js for easy modification:

module.exports = {
  // Only process posts after this date (set to go-live date)
  CUTOFF_DATE: '2025-08-29T00:00:00Z',  // Change this date

  // Mastodon RSS feed URL
  RSS_FEED_URL: 'https://aus.social/@lukesleeman.rss',

  // Jekyll post settings
  POST_SETTINGS: {
    layout: 'post',
    categories: ['mastodon', 'microblog'],  // Change categories here
    timezone: '+1000'
  },

  // Processing limits
  MAX_POSTS_PER_RUN: 10,  // How many posts to process per run
  MIN_POST_LENGTH: 10,    // Minimum post length to include

  // Hashtag filtering settings
  HASHTAG_FILTER: {
    ENABLED: false,       // Set to true to enable hashtag filtering
    TAG: 'microblog'      // The hashtag to filter by (without #)
  }
};

The cron schedule can be edited in the workflow file

Title Generation

The system uses intelligent title generation (.github/scripts/title-generator.js) that creates readable, descriptive titles from your Mastodon posts instead of simple truncation.

Title Generation Strategies

• Natural sentences: Uses complete first sentences when they’re a good length (15-80 chars)
• Pattern recognition: Recognises common patterns like “Day X of…”, “I’m doing…”, questions, etc.
• HTML entity decoding: Properly converts ' to ', " to ", etc.
• Smart truncation: Finds natural break points at commas, conjunctions, or word boundaries
• Fallback handling: Uses meaningful text chunks when other strategies don’t work

Examples

• "I'm challenging myself to build 10 things in 10 d" → "I'm challenging myself to build 10 things in 10 days using agentic AI"
• "Day 2 of "building stuff" with using agentic" → "Day 2 of "building stuff" with using agentic AI"

You can test title generation with: node .github/scripts/test-title-generator.js