Today I discovered an interesting inconsistency in Activity Streams specs while investigating a Fedify issue.

The question: How should we interpret URLs like "icon": "https://example.com/avatar.png"?

JSON-LD context (https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams): @type: "@id" → “This is an IRI reference, dereference it to fetch an ActivityStreams object.”

Activity Streams Primer: “assume that a bare string is the href of a Link object, not an id” (no dereferencing)

Result: JSON-LD processor-based implementations try to parse PNG files as JSON and fail.

Turns out w3c/activitystreams#595 already discusses the same issue for href properties. I added a note that icon, image, etc. have the same problem.

Once again reminded of how tricky spec work can be…

#ActivityPub #Fedify #ActivityStreams #fedidev #specifications

We're excited to share an update on #Fedify's development! While we're actively working on Fedify 1.9 in the main branch, we've also begun preparations for Fedify 2.0 in the next branch.

Before you get too excited about revolutionary new features, we want to set clear expectations: Fedify 2.0 will primarily focus on cleaning up technical debt that we couldn't address due to backward compatibility constraints. This means removing deprecated APIs and making breaking changes that will ultimately result in a cleaner, more maintainable codebase. Think of it as a major housekeeping release—necessary work that will make Fedify better in the long run.

Some of the planned improvements include adding readonly modifiers throughout our types and interfaces to better enforce our immutability-by-default principle, implementing our own RFC 6570 URI Template library for symmetric expansion and pattern matching, and various CLI tool migrations to our new Optique framework for better cross-runtime support. While the majority of changes will be about refinement rather than revolution, these updates will strengthen Fedify's foundation and improve interoperability across the #fediverse. You can track all planned changes in detail by checking out the Fedify 2.0 milestone on our GitHub repository.

#Fedify2 #fedidev #ActivityPub

We're excited to share an update on #Fedify's development! While we're actively working on Fedify 1.9 in the main branch, we've also begun preparations for Fedify 2.0 in the next branch.

Before you get too excited about revolutionary new features, we want to set clear expectations: Fedify 2.0 will primarily focus on cleaning up technical debt that we couldn't address due to backward compatibility constraints. This means removing deprecated APIs and making breaking changes that will ultimately result in a cleaner, more maintainable codebase. Think of it as a major housekeeping release—necessary work that will make Fedify better in the long run.

Some of the planned improvements include adding readonly modifiers throughout our types and interfaces to better enforce our immutability-by-default principle, implementing our own RFC 6570 URI Template library for symmetric expansion and pattern matching, and various CLI tool migrations to our new Optique framework for better cross-runtime support. While the majority of changes will be about refinement rather than revolution, these updates will strengthen Fedify's foundation and improve interoperability across the #fediverse. You can track all planned changes in detail by checking out the Fedify 2.0 milestone on our GitHub repository.

#Fedify2 #fedidev #ActivityPub

Finished the basic tutorial for #Fedify - I can now Follow and Unfollow the "me" account. Lots of useful debugging and dev tools built in, too.

I think what's most interesting about this framework is that there are quite a few AP vocabulary activitites available to you above and beyond the Mastodon mainstream.

Would love to tinker around with Offer, Reject, Listen, Question, Read

https://fedify.dev/tutorial/basics

Finished the basic tutorial for #Fedify - I can now Follow and Unfollow the "me" account. Lots of useful debugging and dev tools built in, too.

I think what's most interesting about this framework is that there are quite a few AP vocabulary activitites available to you above and beyond the Mastodon mainstream.

Would love to tinker around with Offer, Reject, Listen, Question, Read

https://fedify.dev/tutorial/basics

The #Fedify monorepo has grown to 16 packages!

We've been working hard to make Fedify more modular and easier to integrate with your favorite tools and platforms. From the core framework to database drivers, from CLI tools to web framework integrations—we've got you covered.

Our packages now include:

• Core framework and CLI tools
• Web framework integrations: Express, Hono, H3, Elysia, NestJS, Next.js, SvelteKit
• Database drivers: PostgreSQL, Redis, SQLite, AMQP/RabbitMQ
• Platform integrations: Cloudflare Workers, Deno KV
• Testing utilities

Each package is available on JSR and/or npm, making it easy to pick exactly what you need for your ActivityPub implementation.

What integration would you like to see next? Let us know!

#ActivityPub #fedidev #fediverse #OpenSource #TypeScript

The #Fedify monorepo has grown to 16 packages!

We've been working hard to make Fedify more modular and easier to integrate with your favorite tools and platforms. From the core framework to database drivers, from CLI tools to web framework integrations—we've got you covered.

Our packages now include:

• Core framework and CLI tools
• Web framework integrations: Express, Hono, H3, Elysia, NestJS, Next.js, SvelteKit
• Database drivers: PostgreSQL, Redis, SQLite, AMQP/RabbitMQ
• Platform integrations: Cloudflare Workers, Deno KV
• Testing utilities

Each package is available on JSR and/or npm, making it easy to pick exactly what you need for your ActivityPub implementation.

What integration would you like to see next? Let us know!

#ActivityPub #fedidev #fediverse #OpenSource #TypeScript

We're excited to announce the release of BotKit 0.3.0! This release marks a significant milestone as #BotKit now supports #Node.js alongside #Deno, making it accessible to a wider audience. The minimum required Node.js version is 22.0.0. This dual-runtime support means you can now choose your preferred #JavaScript runtime while building #ActivityPub #bots with the same powerful BotKit APIs.

One of the most requested features has landed: poll support! You can now create interactive polls in your #bot messages, allowing followers to vote on questions with single or multiple-choice options. Polls are represented as ActivityPub Question objects with proper expiration times, and your bot can react to votes through the new onVote event handler. This feature enhances engagement possibilities and brings BotKit to feature parity with major #fediverse platforms like Mastodon and Misskey.

// Create a poll with multiple choicesawait session.publish(textWhat&#39;s your favorite programming language?, { class: Question, poll: { multiple: true, // Allow multiple selections options: ["JavaScript", "TypeScript", "Python", "Rust"], endTime: Temporal.Now.instant().add({ hours: 24 }), },});// Handle votesbot.onVote = async (session, vote) => { console.log(</span><span>${</span><span>vote</span><span>.</span><span>actor</span><span>}</span><span> voted for &quot;</span><span>${</span><span>vote</span><span>.</span><span>option</span><span>}</span><span>&quot;);};

The web frontend has been enhanced with a new followers page, thanks to the contribution from Hyeonseo Kim (@gaebalgom)! The /followers route now displays a paginated list of your bot's followers, and the follower count on the main profile page is now clickable, providing better visibility into your bot's audience. This improvement makes the web interface more complete and user-friendly.

For developers looking for alternative storage backends, we've introduced the SqliteRepository through the new @fedify/botkit-sqlite package. This provides a production-ready SQLite-based storage solution with ACID compliance, write-ahead logging (WAL) for optimal performance, and proper indexing. Additionally, the new @fedify/botkit/repository module offers MemoryCachedRepository for adding an in-memory cache layer on top of any repository implementation, improving read performance for frequently accessed data.

This release also includes an important security update: we've upgraded to #Fedify 1.8.8, ensuring your bots stay secure and compatible with the latest ActivityPub standards. The repository pattern has been expanded with new interfaces and types like RepositoryGetMessagesOptions, RepositoryGetFollowersOptions, and proper support for polls storage through the KvStoreRepositoryPrefixes.polls option, providing more flexibility for custom implementations.

#fedidev

We're excited to announce the release of BotKit 0.3.0! This release marks a significant milestone as #BotKit now supports #Node.js alongside #Deno, making it accessible to a wider audience. The minimum required Node.js version is 22.0.0. This dual-runtime support means you can now choose your preferred #JavaScript runtime while building #ActivityPub #bots with the same powerful BotKit APIs.

One of the most requested features has landed: poll support! You can now create interactive polls in your #bot messages, allowing followers to vote on questions with single or multiple-choice options. Polls are represented as ActivityPub Question objects with proper expiration times, and your bot can react to votes through the new onVote event handler. This feature enhances engagement possibilities and brings BotKit to feature parity with major #fediverse platforms like Mastodon and Misskey.

// Create a poll with multiple choicesawait session.publish(textWhat&#39;s your favorite programming language?, { class: Question, poll: { multiple: true, // Allow multiple selections options: ["JavaScript", "TypeScript", "Python", "Rust"], endTime: Temporal.Now.instant().add({ hours: 24 }), },});// Handle votesbot.onVote = async (session, vote) => { console.log(</span><span>${</span><span>vote</span><span>.</span><span>actor</span><span>}</span><span> voted for &quot;</span><span>${</span><span>vote</span><span>.</span><span>option</span><span>}</span><span>&quot;);};

The web frontend has been enhanced with a new followers page, thanks to the contribution from Hyeonseo Kim (@gaebalgom)! The /followers route now displays a paginated list of your bot's followers, and the follower count on the main profile page is now clickable, providing better visibility into your bot's audience. This improvement makes the web interface more complete and user-friendly.

For developers looking for alternative storage backends, we've introduced the SqliteRepository through the new @fedify/botkit-sqlite package. This provides a production-ready SQLite-based storage solution with ACID compliance, write-ahead logging (WAL) for optimal performance, and proper indexing. Additionally, the new @fedify/botkit/repository module offers MemoryCachedRepository for adding an in-memory cache layer on top of any repository implementation, improving read performance for frequently accessed data.

This release also includes an important security update: we've upgraded to #Fedify 1.8.8, ensuring your bots stay secure and compatible with the latest ActivityPub standards. The repository pattern has been expanded with new interfaces and types like RepositoryGetMessagesOptions, RepositoryGetFollowersOptions, and proper support for polls storage through the KvStoreRepositoryPrefixes.polls option, providing more flexibility for custom implementations.

#fedidev

We'd like to recognize the valuable contributions from two developers who participated in Korea's #OSSCA (Open Source Contribution Academy) program. Both contributors identified important gaps in #Fedify's functionality and documentation, providing thoughtful solutions that benefit the broader #ActivityPub ecosystem.

@gaebalgom contributed PR #365, addressing issue #353 regarding NodeInfo parser compatibility, originally reported by @andypiper. The issue arose when Fedify incorrectly rejected #NodeInfo documents from snac instances due to overly strict version string parsing that required semantic versioning compliance. Their solution improves the fallback behavior in the parseSoftware() function to handle non-SemVer version strings by parsing dot-separated numbers and defaulting to zero for missing components. The implementation includes thorough test coverage for various edge cases, including single numbers (3), two-part versions (2.81), and malformed version strings. This fix provides immediate compatibility improvements across the fediverse while maintaining backward compatibility, and will be included in Fedify 1.9. The contribution serves as an interim solution, with a more comprehensive fix planned for Fedify 2.0 (issue #366), where the NodeInfo software.version field will be changed from the SemVer type to a plain string to fully comply with the NodeInfo specification.

@z9mb1 contributed PR #364, resolving issue #337 by adding practical examples for Fedify's custom collection dispatchers feature. Custom collections were introduced in Fedify 1.8 but lacked clear documentation for developers seeking to implement them. Their contribution provides a comprehensive example demonstrating how to set up custom collections for tagged posts, including proper routing patterns, pagination handling, and counter functionality. The example includes mock data structures, shows how to configure collection dispatchers with URL patterns like /users/{userId}/tags/{tag}, and demonstrates the complete request/response cycle using federation.fetch(). This work provides developers with a clear, runnable reference that reduces the complexity of implementing custom collections in ActivityPub applications.

We appreciate these meaningful contributions that help make Fedify more accessible and robust for the entire ActivityPub community.

#opensource #fedidev #fediverse

We'd like to recognize the valuable contributions from two developers who participated in Korea's #OSSCA (Open Source Contribution Academy) program. Both contributors identified important gaps in #Fedify's functionality and documentation, providing thoughtful solutions that benefit the broader #ActivityPub ecosystem.

@gaebalgom contributed PR #365, addressing issue #353 regarding NodeInfo parser compatibility, originally reported by @andypiper. The issue arose when Fedify incorrectly rejected #NodeInfo documents from snac instances due to overly strict version string parsing that required semantic versioning compliance. Their solution improves the fallback behavior in the parseSoftware() function to handle non-SemVer version strings by parsing dot-separated numbers and defaulting to zero for missing components. The implementation includes thorough test coverage for various edge cases, including single numbers (3), two-part versions (2.81), and malformed version strings. This fix provides immediate compatibility improvements across the fediverse while maintaining backward compatibility, and will be included in Fedify 1.9. The contribution serves as an interim solution, with a more comprehensive fix planned for Fedify 2.0 (issue #366), where the NodeInfo software.version field will be changed from the SemVer type to a plain string to fully comply with the NodeInfo specification.

@z9mb1 contributed PR #364, resolving issue #337 by adding practical examples for Fedify's custom collection dispatchers feature. Custom collections were introduced in Fedify 1.8 but lacked clear documentation for developers seeking to implement them. Their contribution provides a comprehensive example demonstrating how to set up custom collections for tagged posts, including proper routing patterns, pagination handling, and counter functionality. The example includes mock data structures, shows how to configure collection dispatchers with URL patterns like /users/{userId}/tags/{tag}, and demonstrates the complete request/response cycle using federation.fetch(). This work provides developers with a clear, runnable reference that reduces the complexity of implementing custom collections in ActivityPub applications.

We appreciate these meaningful contributions that help make Fedify more accessible and robust for the entire ActivityPub community.

#opensource #fedidev #fediverse

I've heard good things on the server side from #fedify, but what's a good #TypeScript client library for #ActivityPub? Suppose I wanted to write a #fediverse client for #KaiOS for example

Asking for a friend 😉