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.
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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.
In case you weren't aware, #Fedify has both #Discord and #Matrix communities where you can get help, discuss features, or just chat about #ActivityPub and federated social networks.
Matrix space: #fedify:matrix.org
Discord server: https://discord.gg/bhtwpzURwd
Feel free to join either community based on your preference. Both channels have active discussions about Fedify and federation topics.
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!
Hey folks! We're excited to share a preview of a new API coming in #Fedify 1.6 that should make structuring larger federated apps much cleaner: FederationBuilder.
As your Fedify applications grow, you might encounter circular dependency issues when registering dispatchers and listeners across multiple files. The new FederationBuilder pattern helps solve this by separating the configuration phase from instantiation.
Instead of this:
// federation.tsimport { createFederation } from "@fedify/fedify";export const federation = createFederation<AppContext>({ kv: new DbKvStore(), queue: new RedisMessageQueue(), // Other options...});// Now we need to import this federation instance in other files// to register dispatchers and listeners...
You can now do this:
// builder.tsimport { createFederationBuilder } from "@fedify/fedify";export const builder = createFederationBuilder<AppContext>();// other files can import and configure this builder...
// actors.tsimport { builder } from "./builder.ts";import { Person } from "@fedify/fedify";builder.setActorDispatcher("/users/{handle}", async (ctx, handle) => { // Actor implementation});
// inbox.tsimport { builder } from "./builder.ts";import { Follow } from "@fedify/fedify";builder.setInboxListeners("/users/{handle}/inbox", "/inbox") .on(Follow, async (ctx, follow) => { // Follow handling });
// main.ts — Only create the Federation instance at startupimport { builder } from "./builder.ts";// Build the Federation object with actual dependenciesexport const federation = await builder.build({ kv: new DbKvStore(), queue: new RedisMessageQueue(), // Other options...});
This pattern helps avoid circular dependencies and makes your code more modular. Each part of your app can configure the builder without needing the actual Federation instance.
The full documentation will be available when 1.6 is released, but we wanted to share this early with our community. Looking forward to your feedback when it lands!
Want to try it right now? You can install the development version from JSR or npm:
# Denodeno add jsr:@fedify/fedify@1.6.0-dev.777+1206cb01# Node.jsnpm add @fedify/fedify@1.6.0-dev.777# Bunbun add @fedify/fedify@1.6.0-dev.777
🎉 Huge shoutouts to two amazing contributors from Korea's #OSSCA program who just made #Fedify even better!
First, @z9mb1 delivered PR #321, adding a handy -o/--output option to fedify lookup. Now you can save lookup results directly to files instead of just printing to terminal—a nice quality-of-life improvement for analysis and scripting workflows.
But the real showstopper is @joonnot's incredible PR #283, which introduces the brand new @fedify/testing package! This massive contribution (2,014 lines across 20 files) brings MockFederation and MockContext classes that completely transform how we test federated applications. No more complex setups or actual network requests—just clean, straightforward unit testing with activity tracking, inbox simulation, and queue-aware testing capabilities.
These contributions solve real pain points and showcase the amazing talent emerging from the OSSCA program. Both features will be available in the upcoming Fedify 1.8 release. The future of federated software development just got a lot brighter! 🚀
#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 12d ago
We'd like to recognize some excellent contributions from our #OSSCA (Open Source Contribution Academy) participants who have been working on #Fedify.
@gaebalgom contributed PR #339, which introduces the @fedify/elysia package to provide Elysia integration for Fedify. This work addresses issue #286 by creating a plugin that enables developers using #Bun and #Elysia to integrate Fedify's #ActivityPub capabilities into their applications. The contribution includes the core integration module, documentation, examples, and proper monorepo configuration, making Fedify accessible to the Elysia community.
@r4bb1t submitted PR #315, implementing comprehensive AbortSignal support across multiple APIs to resolve issue #51. This contribution adds request cancellation capabilities not only to lookupWebFinger() but also to lookupObject(), DocumentLoader, and the HTTP signature authentication flow (doubleKnock()), allowing developers to properly handle timeouts and abort ongoing requests throughout the entire request chain. The implementation includes extensive test coverage for cancellation scenarios across all affected components and lays the groundwork for adding --timeout options to various CLI commands like fedify lookup, fedify webfinger, and fedify nodeinfo, making federated applications more robust and responsive.
@ooheunda addressed a testing infrastructure issue with PR #350, fixing a race condition in PostgreSQL message queue tests that was causing intermittent failures (issue #346). By adding explicit initialization before concurrent message queue listeners, this fix prevents table creation conflicts that were affecting test reliability, ensuring more consistent PR testing for all contributors.
@songbirds provided two test stability improvements with PR #344 and PR #347. The first PR adds skip guards to RedisKvStore tests as a workaround for a known Bun runtime issue, keeping the test suite functional while awaiting an upstream fix. The second PR resolves a race condition in the code generation process by randomizing output filenames, preventing conflicts during parallel test execution. These contributions help maintain a stable testing environment for the project.
Thank you all for your contributions to Fedify. Your work helps make federated social networking more accessible to developers.
🔒 Security Update for BotKit Users
We've released #security patch versions BotKit 0.1.2 and 0.2.2 to address CVE-2025-54888, a security #vulnerability discovered in #Fedify. These updates incorporate the latest patched version of Fedify to ensure your bots remain secure.
We strongly recommend all #BotKit users update to the latest patch version immediately. Thank you for keeping the #fediverse safe! 🛡️
Feditext, one of my favorite, consistently solid fediverse apps, (love it for GtS) is looking for iOS devs to swat at a bug or two.
#FediApps #FediDev #iosdev https://mastodon.social/@Feditext/114990933150568200