Documentation
You can use Bluesky Feed Creator to design, host and manage Feeds on Bluesky.
A Feed collects posts related to a specific topic of your choosing, and displays them in one list.
When you set up a new Feed, it will begin monitoring Bluesky, looking for any new posts matching your keywords. When it finds one, it will insert it into your Feed.
Getting Started
Once you have an account on BlueskyFeedCreator.com, connect your Bluesky account. You can do this by visiting the "Settings" area and pressing "Add New Account". Feeds cannot be created without a connected Bluesky account.
Once your account is connected, your Feed can be published to your profile. This makes it visible to all Bluesky users.
Adding a new Account
To add a new account, you will need to fill in your Bluesky username (e.g. fyodork.bsky.nz), and generate an 'app password'. This is different to your regular Bluesky password, and can be generated in your Bluesky Settings.
Once you have filled these details in correctly, you will see a success message. An example is pictured below.
Creating a Feed
When you have connected a Bluesky account, you can then create a new Feed. Visit the "My Feeds" area and press "Add new feed".
The required fields you need to fill in are:
- Feed Path
- Title
- Description
Feed Path
This forms part of the public URL (website address) of your feed, combined with your Bluesky handle. A good idea is to keep it short so it's easily memorable, e.g. "nzpets" - but it can be up to 15 characters long.
Public Information
In this area, Bluesky users can see the Feed Title, Description and Avatar. These are all shown within the Bluesky app itself, and help people search for and identify your Feed.
"Publishing" to Bluesky is when you update the Public Information (Title, Description or Avatar) of your Feed in the Bluesky app. If you want to change the Public Information of your Feed, you will also need to click the "Save and Publish" button in Bluesky Feed Creator, so that the information is also updated in the Bluesky app.
Should you need to force your public information to publish to Bluesky, you can change the text in either the Title or Description box - then the "Save and Publish" button will become blue so you can click it.
Public Description Page
Every Feed hosted on BlueskyFeedCreator.com has an additional Public Description Page, separate to the Bluesky app. You do not have to share the link to it, but it can be a useful landing page for Bluesky users looking for more details about your Feed.
You can format the page using Markdown. You can use an online markdown editor to design it.
Some details you could include are:
- how your Feed captures posts
- what the intention is of your Feed
- any rules for your Feed
- how to apply to post on the Feed (if it is restricted)
Capturing Posts
When Bluesky Feed Creator puts a post into a Feed, it's referred to as "capturing".
As the Feed owner, you set the parameters for how capturing happens by using excluded terms and included terms.
The service works like this:
- Exclusions - if a post includes one of your excluded terms, it cannot appear in your Feed, even if it includes an included term.
- Inclusions - if a post has not been excluded and it includes one of your included terms, it appears in your Feed.
Unless you use wildcards or emojis, included and excluded terms are always whole words with either spaces or punctuation on either side of them.
When using emojis or emoji sequences as a term for including or excluding, posts will be excluded or included if they have emojis or emoji sequences matching the term - regardless of whether they have spaces, other characters or punctuation on either side of them.
There is no option to use regex (regular expressions).
You can use Bluesky Labels in your Exclude area to remove all posts with certain content warnings (e.g. nsfw, porn, nudity, sexual).
Use the special keyword label:* to exclude posts with any content warning labels.
Use the special keyword label:none to exclude posts with no content warning labels.
You can choose to exclude some or all posts with these content warnings.
You can exclude one content warning at a time by adding, for example, 'nsfw' to your excludes - you do not have to use the label: prefix for excluding one content warning type at a time.
Supports self applied labels and automatic Bluesky Moderation Service labels.
Wildcards
You can use the * character as a wildcard, to match words that start or end with specific characters.
For example, you could match all words that start with "sci" by using the term sci*, or match all words that finish with "ing", by using the keyword *ing. Wildcards can also be inserted inside a word, or used to find hashtags. For example #sci* would find all hashtags starting with "#sci".
A wildcard will also match the term on its own as if it didn't have a wildcard, so science* will match the word "science" as well as "sciences".
You can also use wildcards to match between words.
For this, you need to surround your * character with a space on each side.
For example, if you wanted your feed to include posts such as "visiting Civic Theatre" but also "visiting the Court Theatre" and "visiting Basement Theatre" then you could use a wildcard term like visiting * Theatre. This would collect all of the posts named above as well as any others where different theatres were named.
Note that this would also collect "visiting my aunt and going to the Theatre".
Requiring Approval
You can choose to manually approve posts before they are shown in a public Feed.
Some examples of rules you could use to determine whether a post requires approval are:
- matching certain terms
- if the post contains a picture
Posts which require approval will show up in the settings page for your Feed, alongside all the automatically included posts. You can choose to approve or deny them.
Restricted Feeds
By default, Feeds you create will be 'unrestricted'. This means they will capture posts from all users in the Bluesky network.
You may choose to make a feed 'restricted' instead, which means a post will only be captured if you have previously approved its author to post to that Feed.
This feature can be used to create more tight knit community Feeds, or even Feeds that look at a single user's posts.
Invite Requests
If you are running a restricted Feed, you will see 'requests' from people who wish to join the Feed. In order to use this feature, 'pin' a post in your Feed. Anyone who replies to your pinned post will automatically show up as an invite request which you can approve or deny.
Advanced Usage
If you are running a restricted Feed, you may get questions from people who want to know if they can post in the Feed or not. You can add a special shortcode to your Public Description Page. People can then enter their Bluesky handle in a special box to check whether they can post in the Feed, without having to ask you.
To do this, just enter the shortcode [user-searcher] anywhere in your markdown.
Synced Lists
You can subscribe to public Bluesky "Lists" to allow or block users in bulk, instead of allowing or blocking individual users manually. You may have your own lists that you manage, or you could use lists that other people have shared.
This feature can be used to create feeds which have a large number of pre-approved users already enabled (e.g. a public list of authors).
You can use lists for blocking users as well.
Synced Lists can be managed from your main menu on the left, or from within an individual feed's "Allowed Users" area.
Lists will be automatically re-synced if they are more than 24 hours out of date, or you can use the "Sync All" button.
The users in a list will only be allowed or blocked in your feed as of the most recent sync time.
If you add new users to your list, they will only be able to post in your Feed once you have pressed the "Save and Sync List" button on the Bluesky Feed Creator website.
How To
Importing a Feed from another service
If you enter the feed path of a Feed which already exists in your profile, but is hosted on another service, we will automatically download the existing posts and insert them in to your new Feed when you save it.
The feed path that you enter needs to be identical to the one you used on the other service.
When you publish the Feed from Bluesky Feed Creator, it will replace your existing Feed.
Your Feed's followers will not notice anything. All existing likes and saves will still be present and the URL (website address) for your Feed will still work.
Changing your Bluesky Handle
If you change your Bluesky Handle, your feeds will still be published on your account without you having to do anything.
However, your old credentials will no longer be valid. You will be unable to publish updates to your Feed. To rectify this, you need to add a second "Account" in your "Settings" area with your new handle and a new app password.
Once the account is connected again, you can update each of your Feed's settings to publish under the new account.
Your Feed's followers will not notice anything. All existing likes and saves will still be present and the URL (website address) for your Feed will still work.