CutePetsBoston

About

Posts a random adoptable pet from the Boston MSPCA to different social media feeds.

It should be easily extendable to other shelters and social media feeds for various locations.

Github Actions

This Project runs on github actions and runs periodically.

Set up your environment variables

Required:

• CUTEPETSBOSTON_RESCUEGROUPS_API_KEY

Optional for Instagram posting:

• INSTAGRAM_HANDLE
• INSTAGRAM_PASSWORD

Optional for Bluesky posting:

• BLUESKY_HANDLE (or BLUESKY_TEST_HANDLE)
• BLUESKY_PASSWORD (or BLUESKY_TEST_PASSWORD)

Optional for Mastodon posting:

• MASTODON_TOKEN or MASTODON_TEST_TOKEN
• MASTODON_API_BASE_URL (defaults to https://mastodon.social)

Optional platform selection:

• POSTER_PLATFORMS to limit posting to specific platforms, for example mastodon or bluesky,mastodon

File organization

• main.py: orchestrates fetching pets and publishing posts.
• abstractions.py: shared interfaces and data models.
• source_*.py: pet source implementations (ingest from APIs).
• poster_*.py: social media poster implementations.
• manually_test_post.py: CLI for manual posting with sample data.

How to run the script

python main.py

To run only the Mastodon poster locally or in GitHub Actions:

POSTER_PLATFORMS=mastodon python main.py

History

This project was originally started by Becky Boone and Drew during their fellowship at Code for America in 2014.

Sister Projects

• CutePetsDenver