Posting with Startica (beta)

Post… opens the thread or the site’s new-post form in a Startica window, with your reply (or your post’s title and text) already filled in. You read it on the real page, edit it if you like, and press the site’s own button. Startica sees that the post went through, saves its link and marks it as posted. It saves you the copy, the paste and the Mark as posted step.

Startica never presses the button that sends your post. It doesn’t click it, press Enter or submit the form in any other way. On some sites it clicks the button that only opens a reply box (for example a comment’s reply link), never the one that sends. Nothing is posted until you press the site’s button yourself.

Where it works

Channel	Inbox replies	Content Studio pieces
X	Yes, for links to a single post (x.com/<user>/status/<id>)	Yes, single posts
Hacker News	Yes	Yes
Reddit	Yes, to a post or to a comment	Yes
LinkedIn	Yes, for links to a post (linkedin.com/feed/update/… or linkedin.com/posts/…). Read LinkedIn and its terms first.	Yes
Bluesky	Yes	Yes, single posts
Mastodon	Yes, once your Mastodon server is set in Settings	Yes, single posts, once your server is set
Discourse	Yes, to a topic or to a post in it	Yes, as a new topic in the product’s first watched forum
Facebook, other sites	No: copy only	No: copy only
Blog, Newsletter, Email, Other (Content Studio)		No: copy only

Post… is only in the desktop app. In browser mode (yarn dev:desktop-web) it’s hidden, and you copy and post by hand.

In Content Studio, the piece’s channel decides which site Post… opens. A piece written for Bluesky opens Bluesky.

When the Post button is hidden

Post… only appears when Startica can build the posting page for that item. It’s hidden when:

Reason	Applies to
The item is a thread (Content Studio format Thread)	X, Bluesky, Mastodon
The text is over the site’s limit: 4,000 characters on X, 3,000 on LinkedIn, 500 on Mastodon (for a reply, including the @author mention), 300 on Bluesky	Replies and pieces
No Mastodon server is set in Settings → Channels → Posting	Mastodon replies and pieces
The product has no watched Discourse forum	Discourse pieces (new topics)
The link isn’t one Startica can open for posting (for example an X or LinkedIn profile link instead of a post link)	Inbox replies

Longer text is never cut. Copy it instead, and post it by hand (or split it yourself).

Hacker News, Reddit and Discourse posts from Content Studio also need a title. Post… stays visible when the Title field is empty; clicking it then says “Add a title first: this channel’s posts need one” and opens nothing.

Post a reply or a piece

1. In the Inbox, open To review and get the draft right. In Content Studio, open the piece in the Library.
2. Click Post… (next to Copy & open thread in the Inbox, or Copy in Content Studio). Unsaved edits are saved first.
3. A Post with Startica window opens: a Startica bar at the top, and the site’s real page below it.
4. Startica fills in the reply, or the title and text of a new post. The bar says what to check and names the button to press, for example “Check your reply, edit it if you like, then press “Comment” on the page. Startica never posts for you.”
5. Read it on the page. Edit it there if you want to.
6. Press the site’s own button.
7. The bar shows “Posted. Saving it to Startica…”, then one of these, and the window closes on its own:

Site	The bar says
Reddit, Hacker News, Bluesky, Mastodon, Discourse, and X when an X API token is set	“Saved to Startica. Replies to it will be tracked for two weeks.”
LinkedIn, and X without a token	“Saved to Startica.”
Discourse, when the forum holds the post for a moderator	“Saved to Startica. The forum shows it once a moderator approves it; add its link in Startica then.”

In Startica, the Inbox card moves to Posted, or the piece shows as posted in the Content Studio Library, with the link to your post. From there it’s the same as Mark as posted with a link: see Engagement tracking.

Only one posting window is open at a time. Clicking Post… on another card replaces it. Closing the window without posting records nothing.

What each site opens

Site	Reply	New post	Button you press
X	X’s official post composer (x.com/intent/tweet) as a reply to that post, with your text in it	The same composer, with your text	Reply or Post
Hacker News	The item’s page; the reply goes in its reply box	news.ycombinator.com/submit, with the title and the text (or the link, if the piece is only a link)	reply or submit
Reddit	The thread on old.reddit.com; the reply goes in the comment box, or in the reply box under the comment you’re answering	old.reddit.com/submit as a text post, with the title and text. You pick the subreddit there.	save or submit
LinkedIn	The post’s page; your reply is typed into its comment box	LinkedIn’s own composer, opened with your text (linkedin.com/feed/?shareActive=true)	Comment or Post
Bluesky	The post’s page; Startica opens its reply composer and types your reply in	Bluesky’s official compose link (bsky.app/intent/compose), with your text	Reply or Post
Mastodon	The post, opened on your own server; Startica opens its reply box, which starts with an "@author " mention, and adds your reply after it	Your server’s share page (https://<your server>/share), with your text	Reply or Post
Discourse	The topic or post; Startica clicks the topic’s (or that post’s) Reply button to open the composer and fills it in	The forum’s new-topic page (<forum>/new-topic), with the title and text. You pick the category there.	Reply or Create Topic

Reddit opens on old.reddit.com because its forms are simple and stable. Your post appears on the normal Reddit site as usual, and Startica saves a www.reddit.com link.

The button names in the table are what the bar tells you to press. A site may label its button slightly differently.

Rich-text editors

LinkedIn, Bluesky and Discourse’s rich editing mode use rich-text editors that ignore text set by a script. For those, Startica focuses the box and types your text in as real keyboard input. It still never presses the button. If the box already has text in it (for example because the site’s own link pre-filled it), Startica leaves it as it is.

Set your Mastodon server

Mastodon replies and posts go out from your own account on your own server, wherever the post you’re replying to lives.

1. Open Settings, find the Posting card and click Edit.
2. In Your Mastodon server, enter your server, for example mastodon.social. You can also paste your handle (you@mastodon.social) or the server’s address; Startica keeps just the server name.
3. Save. The card shows “Mastodon server: mastodon.social.”

Until it’s set, the card says “Mastodon server: not set (Post… stays hidden for Mastodon).” Anything that isn’t a server name gets “Enter your server’s address, e.g. mastodon.social”. Leave it empty to turn Mastodon posting off again.

For a reply, the window opens the post on your server (through Mastodon’s own authorize_interaction page), and Startica opens its reply box. Mastodon starts the reply with an "@author " mention, and Startica keeps it in front of your text. The 500-character check counts the mention too (@ plus the author’s handle and a space), so a reply that fits the check fits on the server.

Startica uses Mastodon’s default limit of 500 characters, even if your server allows more.

Discourse forums and moderation

• Replies work for any Discourse topic or post link in the Inbox. A topic link replies to the topic; a link to a post inside it (ending in a post number) replies to that post.
• New topics from Content Studio go to the product’s first watched Discourse forum (the one you added first on the Intel page). There’s no forum picker yet. Without a watched forum, Post… is hidden for Discourse pieces.
• Titles. Content Studio shows a Title field for Discourse pieces. Fill it in before posting.
• Categories. On the new-topic page, you pick the category. Startica doesn’t.
• Held for approval. Many forums hold posts from new members for a moderator. Startica still records the post, without a link, and the bar says to add the link once it’s approved. Then use Add link: on the posted card in the Inbox’s Posted tab, or on the posted piece in Content Studio. Replies are tracked from then on.

LinkedIn and its terms

Sign in once per site

The first time you post to a site, you’re probably not signed in to it in the posting window. The bar says “Sign in on this page first (Startica remembers it), then click Fill in again.”

1. Sign in on the page as you normally would. Sign-in pages from Google, Apple, GitHub, GitLab, Discord and Microsoft are allowed in the window, for sites that offer them.
2. Click Fill in again in the bar. Startica goes back to the right page and fills it in.

You sign in to each site once. For Mastodon that’s your own server; for Discourse it’s each forum. The posting window keeps its own sign-ins between launches, separate from your normal browser and from the app’s main window. Startica never sees your password: you type it into the site’s own page, and Startica doesn’t read or store it. To sign out, see Data folder.

Some Discourse forums sign you in through another site. Sign-in with Google, Apple, GitHub, GitLab, Discord or Microsoft works in the window. A forum with its own single sign-on elsewhere (for example a company login) opens that page in your normal browser, so the sign-in can’t finish in the window. Use the forum’s own username and password if it has them, or use the fallbacks: copy and post by hand, then Mark as posted.

The bar

Button	What it does
Fill in again	Goes back to the page Startica opened and fills it in again. Use it after signing in, or if the box got cleared.
Copy text	Copies the reply or post text to your clipboard, to paste by hand.
Save link…	Shows a Link to your post field. Paste the full link to what you posted and click Save. Use it when Startica posted fine but couldn’t find the link. Anything that isn’t a full https:// address gets “That doesn’t look like a link. Paste the full address, starting with https://”.
Close	Closes the window. Nothing is recorded unless the post was already saved.

When something goes wrong

The bar says	What happened	What to do
“Sign in on this page first (Startica remembers it), then click Fill in again.”	You’re not signed in to the site in the posting window.	Sign in on the page, then click Fill in again.
“Couldn’t find where to fill it in. The text is on your clipboard: paste it, then press …”	The box wasn’t where Startica expected: the site changed its layout, a CAPTCHA or interstitial is in the way, or the thread is locked.	Paste the text into the box yourself and press the button. Startica still saves the link if it can.
“Did it post? Paste the link to it to save it in Startica.”	You pressed the button, but Startica couldn’t find the new post’s link, or the site refused the post (Hacker News answers “You’re posting too fast” when you post often).	If it posted, copy the link from the site, paste it into Link to your post and click Save. If it didn’t post, wait and try again, or close the window.
“Posted, but Startica couldn’t save it: … Mark it as posted in Startica.”	The post went through but Startica couldn’t record it.	Close the window and use Mark as posted (Inbox) or Mark posted (Content Studio), with the link.

Mark as posted always works, with or without the posting window. If you already marked a reply as posted while its posting window was open, Startica only adds the link if it was missing.

More fixes are in Troubleshooting.

Privacy and safety

• No AI in the browser. Filling in is a fixed script per site that puts your text in a known box. No AI looks at or drives the page, and nothing from the page is sent to the AI. Text on a page can’t instruct Startica to do anything, and posting costs nothing.
• You always submit. Startica fills in and you press the button. It has no “post for me”, scheduling or bulk posting, and won’t.
• Separated from Startica. The site in the window has no access to your files, to Startica’s local server or to its launch token. Only the Startica bar above it can talk to the app, and it can only ask for the four things its buttons do.
• Only the site. The window shows only the site you’re posting to (that exact host or its subdomains; for Mastodon your own server, for Discourse that forum), plus the Google, Apple, GitHub, GitLab, Discord and Microsoft sign-in pages, which follow the same rules and can’t open further windows. Any other link opens in your normal browser. Requests for your camera, microphone, location or notifications are refused.
• Only your own post. Startica doesn’t read pages through the posting window. It only looks at the request the site’s button sends and the site’s answer to it, to find the new post’s link. On Bluesky it checks that the request creates a post, so a like or follow on the same page isn’t mistaken for your post. It doesn’t read your feed, messages or other pages.
• A normal browser to the site. The window identifies itself as plain Chrome, without Electron or Startica in its user agent, because some sign-in pages refuse embedded browsers.

See Privacy and security for the details.

Current limits

• Beta, tested only against stand-ins. The desktop smoke test posts a reply on a local stand-in for each of the seven sites, plus three new posts from Content Studio: a Hacker News post, a Bluesky post, and a Discourse topic that the forum holds for approval (saved as posted without a link). Nothing has been tried yet against the live sites with real accounts. When a site changes its pages, filling in or link detection can break until Startica is updated; the fallbacks still work.
• Seven sites. X, Hacker News, Reddit, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Mastodon and Discourse. Facebook is unlikely.
• No threads on X, Bluesky or Mastodon, and nothing over the site’s limit (X 4,000 characters, LinkedIn 3,000, Mastodon 500, Bluesky 300). Copy those and post by hand.
• Inbox replies need a post link. X links like x.com/<user>/status/<id> and LinkedIn links like linkedin.com/feed/update/… or linkedin.com/posts/…. Other links hide Post…; copy and open them instead.
• Mastodon needs your server in Settings → Channels → Posting.
• Discourse new topics go to the first watched forum only, and need a title. Posts held for moderation are saved without a link until you add it with Add link.
• Titles for new posts. Hacker News, Reddit and Discourse posts from Content Studio need a title in the piece’s Title field before Post… works.
• No engagement tracking on LinkedIn, and on X only with an X API token (each check is one paid read). Visits still show in Analytics through the tracking link on every site.
• Desktop app only, and only while Startica is running.