micropub-clj

This is a Clojure and ClojureScript implementation of Micropub, the W3C standard with which apps post to a website, e.g. a note from your phone or a photo from a desktop app. It covers both sides: the endpoint and the media endpoint of a site, and a client that posts to them.

• The standard. The code follows the Recommendation of 23 May 2017 and cites the section of each rule it implements. Its tests include the scenarios of the micropub.rocks test suite, run locally.
• Plain data. Every request becomes a map in the shape of microformats2 JSON, whatever its syntax. The endpoints are Ring handlers that call your own functions.
• Safe by default. The endpoints check access tokens with indieauth-clj and never fetch a URL. The request your functions get hides its token, so your logs don't show it. The client finds an endpoint only in the head of a page, where a commenter can't add one.

The same code runs on the JVM, in Node and in the browser.

This library was spun out of indieblog, which runs simon.grays.blog and takes posts from Micropub clients. It was developed with assistance from frontier LLMs.

Getting started

It requires Clojure 1.11+ and Java 11+. For the latest release, add it from Clojars to the :deps in your deps.edn:

dk.simongray/micropub-clj {:mvn/version "0.3.1"}

For changes that aren't released yet, use the SHA of the latest commit on master instead:

dk.simongray/micropub-clj
{:git/url "https://github.com/simongray/micropub-clj"
 :git/sha "…"}

For ClojureScript, shadow-cljs only reads Git dependencies from deps.edn, so also set :deps true in your shadow-cljs.edn.

Run an endpoint

An endpoint is a Ring handler. Give it the access tokens of an IndieAuth server and functions that store your posts:

(require '[dk.simongray.micropub.server :as server])

(def posts
  (atom {}))

(defn create!
  "Store the entry of the create `action` and return the new post's URL."
  [{:keys [type properties] :as action}]
  (let [url (str "https://simon.grays.blog/posts/" (inc (count @posts)))]
    (swap! posts assoc url {:type type :properties properties})
    {:url url}))

(def opts
  {:me-pred #{"https://simon.grays.blog/"}
   :tokens  tokens
   :create! create!
   :source  (fn [{:keys [url]}] (get @posts url))
   :update! (fn [{:keys [url entry]}] (swap! posts assoc url entry) nil)
   :delete! (fn [{:keys [url]}] (swap! posts dissoc url) nil)})

(def endpoint
  (server/handler opts))

The :tokens are the token store of an indieauth-clj server in the same process. For a server elsewhere, give its :introspection-endpoint and a :resource-token instead. The :me-pred says whose tokens may post.

The handler checks the token and its scope, then calls your function with an action like this one, plus the :token-info and the :ring-request:

{:action     :create
 :type       ["h-entry"]
 :properties {:content  ["Hello"]
              :category ["indieweb" "clojure"]}
 :commands   {:mp-slug ["hello"]}}

A :create! returns the new post's :url, and the handler answers 201. For an update, the handler reads the post with :source, applies the update with micropub/apply-update and passes the result to :update! as the :entry. That way you only map entries to your posts and back, and the same :source answers clients that edit posts.

To refuse an action, return an error such as {:error {:code "invalid_request" :reason "No post at that URL"}}. The handler answers with Micropub's JSON.

Name the endpoint in a Link header of your home page, or in its head:

<link rel="micropub" href="https://simon.grays.blog/micropub">

Files

Clients upload photos and other files to a media endpoint. Make one from the same options and an :upload! that stores a file and returns its URL:

(require '[clojure.java.io :as io])

(defn upload!
  "Store the `file` under a random name and return its URL."
  [{:keys [tempfile] :as file}]
  (let [name (str (random-uuid))]
    (io/copy tempfile (io/file "media" name))
    (str "https://simon.grays.blog/media/" name)))

(def media-endpoint
  (server/media-handler (assoc opts :upload! upload!)))

Clients find it in q=config, so give its URL to the Micropub endpoint as the :media-endpoint. The handlers don't parse multipart bodies themselves, so give your server multipart middleware such as Ring's wrap-multipart-params, which keeps large files out of memory. Given an :upload!, the Micropub endpoint also takes multipart creates. It uploads each file with :upload! and puts the URL in the file's place.

Extensions

Your functions get every property and mp- command as data, so most extensions (e.g. post-status, visibility and mp-slug) need nothing from the library. Put the post types and syndication targets for q=config in :config, and answer other queries with :queries:

(assoc opts
       :config  {:post-types   [{:type "note" :name "Note"}]
                 :syndicate-to []}
       :queries {:category (fn [query] {:categories ["indieweb" "clojure"]})})

A token with only the draft scope can create and update drafts, as the draft scope extension proposes. The other defaults, e.g. the scopes of each action, are in server/default-options.

Post from a client

Find a site's endpoint, and send it actions with the access token you got from IndieAuth:

(require '[dk.simongray.micropub :as micropub])

(micropub/discover! "https://simon.grays.blog/")
;; => {:status 200 :endpoint "https://simon.grays.blog/micropub"}

(micropub/call! (micropub/request "https://simon.grays.blog/micropub" token
                                  {:type       ["h-entry"]
                                   :properties {:content ["Hello"]}}))
;; => {:status 201 :url "https://simon.grays.blog/posts/2026/hello"}

The client sends a create form-encoded when it can, since every server accepts that, and as JSON otherwise. For a query, e.g. q=config to find the media endpoint, use micropub/query-request. A server's error comes back under :error, with Micropub's :code and :reason.

To post a photo, upload it to the media endpoint and put its URL in the post:

(micropub/call! (micropub/upload-request "https://simon.grays.blog/media" token
                                         {:content      jpeg-bytes
                                          :filename     "sunset.jpg"
                                          :content-type "image/jpeg"}))
;; => {:status 201 :url "https://simon.grays.blog/assets/2026-10-13-sunset.jpg"}

A server without a media endpoint takes the files with the create instead. Give the create its :files, e.g. {:photo [file]}, and the client sends it as multipart.

Principles

• Standards first. The code follows the Recommendation and cites its sections, and a comment marks each choice of its own. Where the living standard differs, an option follows it.
• Plain data. Actions, queries and answers are maps, and the client sends through any :send you give it.
• One codebase. The library is written in .cljc and depends on wary-fetch for requests and JSON, webcrypto-clj for bytes, html-pieces for pages, whatwg-url for URLs, whatwg-mime for media types and indieauth-clj for tokens.

Development

clojure -X:test                       # the tests on the JVM
npm install                           # once, for the Node tests
clojure -M:cljs compile test          # the tests in Node
clojure -M:cljs compile browser-test  # for a browser, from target/browser-test

On the JVM, a test also runs the client against the endpoint over HTTP on localhost. doc/micropub-rocks.md says which tests of micropub.rocks the tests cover.

License

The micropub-clj project is licensed under the MIT licence.