barryf / webhook-mentions

Automatically send webmentions from your GitHub Pages blog.

Webhook Mentions

This is a small web app that sends Webmentions to any links in new/updated posts in a Jekyll-powered GitHub Pages site marked up with Microformats 2 h-entry markup.

Deploy the app and then set up a webhook from your GitHub Pages repository to it and whenever a post is successfully pushed webmentions will be sent to any links.

Webmention is a technology developed by the IndieWeb community.

Deploy

I recommend running this on Heroku using the Deploy to Heroku button. You can host it yourself but will need to define the environment variables below.

Choose a name for your copy of the app, e.g. barryf-webhook-mentions. Make a note of this for later. You'll next need to define the following configuration:

• ROOT_URL - the root URL of your GitHub Pages site, e.g. https://barryf.github.io.
• GITHUB_ACCESS_TOKEN - a personal access token for your GitHub Pages site (see below for help).
• GITHUB_USER: your GitHub username, e.g. barryf.
• GITHUB_REPO: your GitHub Pages site repository name, e.g. barryf.github.io.

Personal access token

1. Generate a new personal access token for your GitHub account.
2. Give it a description, e.g. Webhook Mentions.
3. Select the public_repo scope.
4. Click the green Generate token button.
5. Copy the token on the following page and keep this value safe. When the page is closed you cannot view this token again.

Set up a webhook

1. Visit your GitHub Pages repository settings page and select Webhooks & services.
2. Create a new webhook by clicking the Add webhook button.
3. Complete the following fields:
   • Payload URL: the root of your endpoint on Heroku e.g. https://barryf-webhook-mentions.herokuapp.com
   • Content type: application/json
   • Secret: Leave blank.
   • Which events...? select Let me select individual events and then select Page build.
4. Finish by clicking the green Add webhook button.

Write a new post

Test the integration out by writing a test post with a link to my blog post at https://barryfrost.com/2016/07/introducing-webhook-mentions and pushing it to your GitHub Pages site. A few seconds later you should see the webmention appear below my post.

Don't forget your post layout will need Microformats 2 h-entry markup or the app will not find the link to my blog post.

If you have any problems please log an issue and I'll try to help debug.