How to Enable Auto-Posting to Social Media

This guide explains how to get the necessary API keys for X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and Reddit, and how to set them up in your GitHub repository to enable automated posting when you publish a new blog post.

1. Get API Keys

šŸ¦ X (Twitter)

Note: You need a Developer Account. The free tier allows 1,500 posts/month.

  1. Go to the X Developer Portal.
  2. Sign up for a Free developer account if you havenā€™t already.
  3. Create a new Project and App.
  4. Navigate to Keys and Tokens.
  5. Generate the following and save them immediately:
    • API Key (Consumer Key)
    • API Key Secret (Consumer Secret)
    • Access Token
    • Access Token Secret
  6. Important: Ensure your App has Read and Write permissions. Go to ā€œUser authentication settingsā€, enable OAuth 1.0a, and switch permissions to ā€œRead and Writeā€. Regenerate tokens if you change permissions.

šŸ’¼ LinkedIn

  1. Go to LinkedIn Developers.
  2. Click Create App. Associate it with your Company Page (or create a dummy one if posting to personal profile basically works via the same API, but officially usually requires a page context for easiest automation).
  3. Under the Products tab, request access to Share on LinkedIn (or Sign In with LinkedIn + Share on LinkedIn).
  4. Go to Auth tab.
  5. Note down:
    • Client ID
    • Client Secret
  6. Token Note: LinkedIn Access Tokens expire (usually 60 days). For mostly hands-off automation, you might need a workflow that refreshes them, or manually update the secret every 2 months.

šŸ¤– Reddit

  1. Go to Reddit App Preferences.
  2. Click Create another appā€¦ (bottom of page).
  3. Select script.
  4. Fill in details (redirect uri can be http://localhost:8080).
  5. Click create app.
  6. Note down:
    • Client ID (the string under the app name)
    • Client Secret
    • Username (your reddit username)
    • Password (your reddit password)

2. Add Secrets to GitHub

  1. Go to your GitHub Repository.
  2. Click Settings > Secrets and variables > Actions.
  3. Click New repository secret.

  4. Add the following secrets matching your keys:

    Twitter:

    • TWITTER_CONSUMER_KEY
    • TWITTER_CONSUMER_SECRET
    • TWITTER_ACCESS_TOKEN
    • TWITTER_ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET

    LinkedIn:

    • LINKEDIN_ACCESS_TOKEN (You need to generate this using your Client ID/Secret via a tool like Postman standard OAuth2 flow, or use a specific GitHub Action that simplifies this).

    Reddit:

    • REDDIT_CLIENT_ID
    • REDDIT_CLIENT_SECRET
    • REDDIT_USERNAME
    • REDDIT_PASSWORD
    • REDDIT_SUBREDDIT (Target subreddit, e.g., technology or your own profile u_yourname)

3. Enable the Workflow

Once the secrets are added, uncomment the relevant sections in .github/workflows/distribute.yml.