Platform Setup Guide

This guide covers how to set up credentials and configure each supported publishing platform.

DEV.to

Status: Ready | Auth: API Key | Difficulty: Easy

Get Your API Key

1. Log in to dev.to
2. Go to Settings > Extensions > DEV Community API Keys
3. Enter a description (e.g., "ContentForge") and click Generate API Key
4. Copy the key immediately (it will not be shown again)

Configure

contentforge platforms add devto --api-key YOUR_API_KEY

Capabilities

Limitations

• Maximum 4 tags per article
• Tags must be lowercase, no spaces (use hyphens)
• Rate limit: 30 requests per 30 seconds
• Article body is Markdown

Twitter/X

Status: Ready | Auth: OAuth 2.0 / Bearer Token | Difficulty: Medium

Get API Access

1. Go to the Twitter Developer Portal
2. Create a project and app
3. Under Authentication, set up OAuth 2.0 (User context) with the tweet.read and tweet.write scopes
4. Generate a Bearer Token for app-only access, or complete the OAuth 2.0 flow for user context

Warning: Twitter API Tiers

• Free tier: 500 tweets/month, 1 app
• Basic ($100/month): 10,000 tweets/month
• Pro ($5,000/month): 300,000 tweets/month

ContentForge tracks rate limits and will report RateLimited errors with retry-after times.

Configure

contentforge platforms add twitter --bearer-token YOUR_BEARER_TOKEN

Capabilities

Limitations

• 280 characters per tweet
• Threads are published as reply chains (sequential API calls)
• Rate limit: 200 tweets per 15 minutes (user context)

LinkedIn

Status: Ready | Auth: OAuth 2.0 | Difficulty: Medium

Get API Access

1. Go to LinkedIn Developer Portal
2. Create an app
3. Under Products, request access to Share on LinkedIn and Sign In with LinkedIn using OpenID Connect
4. Generate an OAuth 2.0 access token with the w_member_social scope

Note: Access Token Expiry

LinkedIn access tokens expire after 60 days. You will need to refresh them periodically. ContentForge will report AuthFailed when the token expires.

Find Your Author URN

You need your LinkedIn person URN (e.g., urn:li:person:ABC123). To find it:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" https://api.linkedin.com/v2/userinfo

The sub field in the response is your person ID. Your URN is urn:li:person:{sub}.

Configure

contentforge platforms add linkedin \
  --access-token YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN \
  --author-urn "urn:li:person:YOUR_ID"

Capabilities

Limitations

• 3,000 character limit for post text
• Rich media requires additional API permissions
• LinkedIn API versioning: ContentForge uses the 202501 version header

Medium

Status: Ready | Auth: Integration Token | Difficulty: Easy

Get Your Integration Token

1. Log in to Medium
2. Go to Settings > Security and apps > Integration tokens
3. Enter a description and generate a token
4. Copy the token

Warning: Medium API Status

The Medium API is officially deprecated but still functional for creating posts. There is no guarantee of continued availability. Medium does not support post deletion via API.

Configure

contentforge platforms add medium --token YOUR_INTEGRATION_TOKEN

Capabilities

Limitations

• Maximum 5 tags per article
• No deletion support (Medium API limitation)
• API is deprecated but functional

YouTube

Status: Planned | Auth: OAuth 2.0 | Difficulty: Medium

YouTube support is planned for Phase 3. It will allow updating video descriptions and metadata (not video uploads).

Instagram

Status: Planned | Auth: Graph API | Difficulty: Hard

Instagram support is planned for Phase 3. It requires a Facebook Business account and Instagram Professional account, plus the Instagram Graph API.

Reddit

Status: Planned | Auth: OAuth 2.0 | Difficulty: Medium

Reddit support is planned for Phase 3 for submitting self-posts and links to subreddits.

Hacker News

Status: Planned | Auth: Cookie-based | Difficulty: Medium

Hacker News support is planned for Phase 3. Since HN has no official API for posting, this will use authenticated web requests.

Substack

Status: Planned | Auth: Cookie-based | Difficulty: Fragile

Substack support is planned but marked as fragile. Substack has no public API; integration relies on reverse-engineered web endpoints that may break without notice.

Checking Platform Health

After configuring platforms, verify they are working:

# Check all platforms
contentforge platforms health

# Check a specific platform
contentforge platforms health --platform devto

This calls each platform's health check endpoint (typically a "get current user" API call) to verify that credentials are valid and the account is accessible.