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Getting credentials for the Mastodon API with Mastodon.py, step by step

Making a bot? Making a bot in Python? Making a bot in Python that uses the Mastodon API? If so, chances are you need to get some credentials. Here's how I did it!

(The following tutorial uses Python 2.7, but if you're using Python 3+ everything should work substantially the same.)

Mastodon.py authentication

I just started using it, but it looks like Mastodon.py is a pretty great library for working with the Mastodon API! However, all of the authentication examples use static files to store credentials, which I don't like—I'm afraid I'll accidentally push them to Github. I like to keep my authentication as close to the actual command that runs the program as possible, so usually I pass them on the command line to the script running my bot. To do this, I need to get the appropriate credentials on their own, as separate strings that I can cut and paste.

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# Run on the command line like so:
# $ python your_consumer_key your_consumer_secret your_access_token your_token_secret
import requests
from requests.auth import OAuth1

import sys

consumer_key, consumer_secret, access_token, token_secret = \
  	[unicode(x) for x in sys.argv[1:]]

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#!/usr/bin/env python
# run like so:
# $ python mdprev.py --port=8000 --input=your_markdown_file.md
# then open your browser to http://localhost:8000/
# requires tornado and markdown2 https://github.com/trentm/python-markdown2

import os.path
import tornado.httpserver
import tornado.ioloop
import tornado.options

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Don't Tweet, Toot: Understanding Mastodon and the Federated Social Network

Links

General overviews of Mastodon

• Join Mastodon (official, general-purpose)
• Resources for Mastodon Newbies (large list of links to resources)
• Toot How-To: Intro to Mastodon

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