Post to Bluesky

Reelspan posts to Bluesky through the AT Protocol, signed in with an app password. You send the post once; Reelspan uploads the media, sends videos through Bluesky's video service so they play, and creates the post. Text longer than 300 characters becomes a thread.

What you can post

Reelspan handles for you:

• Video processing. Videos go through Bluesky's video service, which transcodes them for playback; Reelspan waits until it is done (up to 10 minutes). The player gets the video's real aspect ratio.
• Image size. Bluesky takes images up to 1 MB. Larger images, and formats other than JPEG, PNG and WebP, are re-encoded as JPEG under 1 MB.
• Clickable links and hashtags. URLs and #hashtags in the text are turned into links and tags.
• Threads. Text over 300 characters is split on paragraph breaks, then lines, then words. The first post carries the media; each next post replies to the one before.

Connect the account

Bluesky connects with your handle and an app password, never your main password.

1. In Bluesky, open Settings → Privacy and security → App passwords and create one. It looks like xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx.
2. In Reelspan, go to Accounts → Bluesky and enter your handle (or email) and the app password, or connect through the API with Connect with credentials:

curl -X POST https://api.reelspan.com/v1/accounts/bluesky \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $REELSPAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"profile_username": "my-brand", "identifier": "mybrand.bsky.social", "app_password": "abcd-efgh-ijkl-mnop"}'

await reelspan.request('POST', '/v1/accounts/bluesky', {
  json: { profile_username: 'my-brand', identifier: 'mybrand.bsky.social', app_password: 'abcd-efgh-ijkl-mnop' },
});

reelspan.accounts.connect("my-brand", "bluesky", identifier="mybrand.bsky.social", app_password="abcd-efgh-ijkl-mnop")

Reelspan checks the app password with Bluesky before saving it, encrypted. To post videos, the Bluesky account's email address must be confirmed.

Example

A video post in English and German, compressed if it is over 100 MB:

curl -X POST https://api.reelspan.com/v1/posts/video \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $REELSPAN_API_KEY" \
  -F "user=my-brand" \
  -F "platform[]=bluesky" \
  -F "bluesky_title=Our new studio, in one take. https://example.com/studio #design" \
  -F "bluesky_langs=en,de" \
  -F "bluesky_compress=true" \
  -F "bluesky_alt_text=A walk through a bright studio with plants and desks" \
  -F "[email protected]"

import { Reelspan } from 'reelspan';
import { readFile } from 'node:fs/promises';

const reelspan = new Reelspan();
const post = await reelspan.posts.video({
  user: 'my-brand',
  platforms: ['bluesky'],
  video: { data: await readFile('launch.mp4'), name: 'launch.mp4', type: 'video/mp4' },
  extra: {
    bluesky_title: 'Our new studio, in one take. https://example.com/studio #design',
    bluesky_langs: 'en,de',
    bluesky_compress: true,
    bluesky_alt_text: 'A walk through a bright studio with plants and desks',
  },
});

from reelspan import Reelspan

reelspan = Reelspan()
post = reelspan.posts.video(
    "my-brand", ["bluesky"], "launch.mp4",
    extra={
        "bluesky_title": "Our new studio, in one take. https://example.com/studio #design",
        "bluesky_langs": "en,de",
        "bluesky_compress": True,
        "bluesky_alt_text": "A walk through a bright studio with plants and desks",
    },
)

Fields

A reply or quote to a post Bluesky can't find fails with bluesky_post_not_found. If Bluesky doesn't take the reply or quote setting, the post still goes out, with a warning.

curl -X POST https://api.reelspan.com/v1/posts/text \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $REELSPAN_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "user": "my-brand",
    "platform": ["bluesky"],
    "title": "This is the best write-up of the launch so far.",
    "bluesky_quote_uri": "at://did:plc:abc123/app.bsky.feed.post/3kxyz",
    "bluesky_threadgate": "following"
  }'

Limits

• Post: 300 characters (counted as people see them: an emoji is one). Longer text becomes a thread.
• Video: up to 100 MB. Bigger videos fail unless you send bluesky_compress=true; then Reelspan re-encodes them (H.264, at most 1080p) to fit.
• Images: up to 4 per post, 1 MB each after re-encoding. With more, the first 4 are used and the result says so.
• Shapes: 16:9 works best; other shapes keep their own ratio.

Good to know

• Confirmed email for video. Bluesky only takes videos from accounts with a confirmed email, and has a daily video limit per account. Reelspan checks both before uploading.
• No link cards. Links are clickable in the text, but no preview card is attached.
• A thread that stops halfway keeps the posts already made: the result is a success with a warning saying where it stopped.
• Result extras: cid (the post's content id). post_id is the post's at:// URI.
• First comment: posted as a reply to the new post.
• Analytics: followers, following and post count for the account; likes, reposts, replies and quotes per post.

After posting

• Delete a post with Unpublish. Only the connected account's own posts can be deleted.
• Repost any post from the account with Repost.
• Bluesky posts can't be edited.

For both, post_id can be the post's at:// URI or its bsky.app/profile/…/post/… link.

Errors