Automatically Posting to Bluesky on New RSS Items

[giscus[bot]]

Automatically Posting to Bluesky on New RSS Items

A look at automating posts to Bluesky when new data is posted to a RSS feed.

https://www.raymondcamden.com/2024/11/05/automatically-posting-to-bluesky-on-new-rss-items

[chrisdrakeuk]

I'm getting an error with the steps.trigger.event.link being undefined (even though the link and title are visible when hovering over the code).
I expect the fix will be something terribly obvious but I'm no coder... ;-)

[benmillett]

I ran into the same issue with generateText. I found that I could indeed post if I use a string for Text and comment out the embed (just for troubleshooting, I know that's not the desired outcome). It appears that steps.generateText is the bad step. Is that in a previous part of your workflow, Raymond? (similar to chrisdrakeuk, I can wait; enjoy your conference)

    let rt = new RichText({
//      text: steps.generateText.$return_value.text
        text: "Test from the API"
    });
    await rt.detectFacets(agent);

    await agent.post({
      text:rt.text,
      facets: rt.facets, 
      langs:['en-US'],
      createdAt: new Date().toISOString()
      // ,
      // embed: {
      //   $type: "app.bsky.embed.external",
      //   external:card
      // }
    });

[benmillett]

I got it working. I think part of the problem for me was Cheerio. Instead, I switched to using the description and the image url directly from the RSS feed item. I also remove any the generateText line and put in my own text.

    // let req = await fetch(steps.trigger.event.link);
    // let html = await req.text();
    // let $$ = cheerio.load(html);
    // card.description = $$('meta[name="og:description"]').attr('content');
    // let image = $$('meta[name="og:image"]').attr('content');

    card.description = steps.trigger.event.description.replace(/<[^>]*>/g, '');
    let image = steps.trigger.event.enclosures[0].url;
    
    if (image) {
      let blob = await fetch(image).then(r => r.blob());
      let { data } = await agent.uploadBlob(blob, { encoding:'image/jpeg'} );
      card.thumb = data.blob;
    } else {
      card.thumb = null;
    }
  
    let rt = new RichText({
//      text: steps.generateText.$return_value.text
        text: `New on the blog: "${steps["trigger"]["event"]["title"]}"`
        
    });
    await rt.detectFacets(agent);

[chrisdrakeuk]

a) If you can share your workflow with me, I can try fixing it. That would mean trusting me - also, I don't know if the free tier of PD supports that. b) I'd be willing to create a video for the blog post that shows it a bit more clearly. However, I can't do this till Friday at the earliest - I'm traveling to a conference.

I think this link invites you to join my workspace.

I've made the changes that benmillett detailed and the test run successfully posted to my BlueSky account.

Whenever you get the free time, feel free to make any changes that may result in the (sporadic but at least daily) source posts appearing on BS.

And thank you for getting me started on a new 'adventure' - it's feeling a lot like my first: pulling apart 6502 code in '74! ;-)

[chrisdrakeuk]

Thank you so much for joining my plea - I was beginning to doubt my efforts...

I got it working. I think part of the problem for me was Cheerio. Instead, I switched to using the description and the image url directly from the RSS feed item. I also remove any the generateText line and put in my own text.

    // let req = await fetch(steps.trigger.event.link);
    // let html = await req.text();
    // let $$ = cheerio.load(html);
    // card.description = $$('meta[name="og:description"]').attr('content');
    // let image = $$('meta[name="og:image"]').attr('content');

    card.description = steps.trigger.event.description.replace(/<[^>]*>/g, '');
    let image = steps.trigger.event.enclosures[0].url;

The debugger insisted I needed to define steps.trigger.event.description and steps.trigger.event.enclosures

    card.description = steps.trigger.event.description 
      ? steps.trigger.event.description.replace(/<[^>]*>/g, '') 
      : '';
    
    let image = steps.trigger.event.enclosures && steps.trigger.event.enclosures.length > 0 
      ? steps.trigger.event.enclosures[0].url 
      : null;

but eventually the test posted:

New post: "${steps["trigger"]["event"]["title"]}

to my BS account.

I count this as a pretty dramatic step forward, not that I have a clue if it means a new rss post will appear when the trigger next fires.

[chrisdrakeuk]

Unfortunately the trigger only results in "New post: "${steps["trigger"]["event"]["title"]}" getting posted...

[gringier]

Hey Raymond, It isn't working for me either.

Would you (or someone who got these steps to work) consider making a quick video that non-coders can follow?

Thanks.

[cfjedimaster]

I 100% plan on doing a video, but not till Friday morning at the earliest.

[cfjedimaster]

Hey everyone, I posted a video and I hope this helps. I literally just posted so it may be encoding still, but let me know if this doesn't help and I'll keep on trying. ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yp9U-QJgOM

[toothless-666]

Okay... I've done everything the video said, even copy/pasted the GitHub code, but I'm still getting the following:

The error occurs because steps.trigger.event.link is undefined, leading to a failure when trying to parse the URL. This happens on line 35 of your code. Ensure that the link field in the trigger event is correctly populated.

What's odd is when I hold my mouse over the below I see what I'm expecting to see

uri:steps.trigger.event.link,
title:steps.trigger.event.title,

...but where it gets odd is it says Line 35, which is actually this:

let blob = await fetch(image).then(r => r.blob());

This is most confusing as I'm not talented in this arena but your methodology looks like the easiest so I'd love to learn it. I also heard you mention Mastodon which I'm also interested in :)

Help? :)

[cfjedimaster]

Thank you @benmillett - looks like both my meta tags 'work', but should be property. I'm going to change that code in my blog post too. I've got a meeting, but updates on the post should be soonish.

Mastodon - this is older, but still works: https://www.raymondcamden.com/2022/12/06/automatically-posting-to-mastodon-and-twitter-on-new-rss-items

Also, if you search on here for Mastodon, it's all bot related.

[cfjedimaster]

Oh heck yea, use that. They didn't have it when I built my first integrations. Dang Pipedream making things better.

[cfjedimaster]

Just as a word of warning, I think property should be used everywhere - so my code (I mean the code I publish to GitHub, and in the blog post after editing), will ONLY look for property. I'll have some 'notes' on top to explain the recent changes.

[toothless-666]

@benmillett & @cfjedimaster

Red on the Mastodon! Aren't you glad you helped me :)

AxiosError - Request failed with status code 404

I also can't figure out how to remove the Connection... #amitheidiot

[toothless-666]

I figured it out. Thank you both SO very much!

[cfjedimaster]

Per the comments by @toothless-666 and @benmillett, I've added a note to the top, and edited the code in here. Thanks everyone!

[fallingrock]

Well, I thought your approach was going to work great, but I ran out of work credits on pipedream almost immediately.

[cfjedimaster]

Did you try tweaking the RSS trigger timing?

[fallingrock]

It was scheduled to run every hour.

I only had 10 credits.

[cfjedimaster]

I'd tweak that to every 4, or maybe even 6 hours. I haven't looked at the free tier in PD in a while, but surely it would support that (I hope!). That being said, there are other options out there where you could borrow my code and apply it there as well. If there's enough interest, I could demonstrate how to do this w/ a Cloudflare Scheduled worker.

[cfjedimaster]

Yea, so looking at PD pricing, the free tier is 10 credits per day, so once an hour would kill that. Unless you blog like crazy, you can really crank it down.