🐦 ssky - Simple Bluesky Client

A lightweight, command-line Bluesky client that makes it easy to interact with the Bluesky social network from your terminal.

✨ Features

• 🔑 Simple authentication and session management
• 📝 Post, reply, quote, and repost content
• 🔍 Search posts and users
• 👥 Follow/unfollow users
• 📊 View timelines and profiles
• 🖼️ Support for images and link cards
• 📦 Linux shell friendly output formats

🚀 Quick Start

Installation

pip install ssky

This installs the CLI and nothing else. If you also want the MCP server for IDE integration, install the optional extra instead:

pip install 'ssky[mcp]'

Login

ssky login your-handle.bsky.social:your-password

Or set credentials via environment variable:

export SSKY_USER=your-handle.bsky.social:your-password

Configuration

By default, ssky stores session data in ~/.ssky. You can customize this location using the SSKY_CONFIG_PATH environment variable:

# Use a custom session file location
export SSKY_CONFIG_PATH=/path/to/custom/session
ssky login your-handle.bsky.social:your-password

# Useful for testing or managing multiple accounts
export SSKY_CONFIG_PATH=~/.ssky-test

Note: The SSKY_CONFIG_PATH must be set before running ssky commands, as it's evaluated when the session module is first loaded.

📖 Basic Usage

Posting

# Simple post
ssky post "Hello, Bluesky!"

# Post with images (add alt text in the same order as --image)
ssky post "Check out these photos!" --image photo1.jpg --image photo2.jpg --alt "a cat" --alt "a dog"

# Post a video
ssky post "My clip" --video clip.mp4 --video-alt "a short clip"

# Tag the language(s) of the post
ssky post "こんにちは" --lang ja

# Reply to a post
ssky post "Great post!" --reply-to at://did:plc:.../app.bsky.feed.post/...

# Quote a post
ssky post "Interesting!" --quote at://did:plc:.../app.bsky.feed.post/...

# Restrict who can reply (threadgate) and disable quote posts (postgate)
ssky post "Announcement" --allow-reply following --allow-reply mentioned --no-quote
ssky post "Private thought" --allow-reply nobody

Reading

# View your timeline
ssky get

# View your timeline with full threads
ssky get --thread

# Get specific post with its thread
ssky get at://did:plc:.../app.bsky.feed.post/... --thread

# Get user's posts as threads with custom depth
ssky get user.bsky.social --thread --thread-depth 5 --thread-parent-height 2

# View someone's profile
ssky profile user.bsky.social

# Search posts
ssky search "keyword"

# Search users
ssky user "username"

Social Actions

# Follow a user
ssky follow user.bsky.social

# Repost a post
ssky repost at://did:plc:.../app.bsky.feed.post/...

# Delete a post
ssky delete at://did:plc:.../app.bsky.feed.post/...

🔧 Advanced Usage

Thread Retrieval

Retrieve posts along with their complete conversation threads:

# Get timeline with full threads (each post expanded to its thread)
ssky get --thread

# Get specific post's thread
ssky get at://did:plc:.../app.bsky.feed.post/... --thread

# Get user's posts as threads
ssky get user.bsky.social --thread

# Control thread depth (default: 10 replies deep)
ssky get --thread --thread-depth 5

# Include parent posts (default: 0 parents)
ssky get --thread --thread-parent-height 2

# Save threads to files
ssky get --thread --output ./threads

Thread Output Formatting:

• Short/ID format (no flag, -I): Reply lines prefixed with "| "
• Long/Text format (-L, -T): Posts within thread separated by "|", independent threads by "----------------"
• JSON/simple-json: Cannot be used with --thread (returns error)

Output Formats

# Get only post IDs
ssky get --id

# Get only text content
ssky get --text

# Get full JSON output
ssky get --json

# Get simplified JSON with facets metadata (ideal for programmatic access)
ssky get --simple-json

# Save posts to files
ssky get --output ./posts

📖 Output format specification — exactly what each format emits for each kind of result: field sets, delimiters, escaping, empty results, and error behavior. Read this before scripting against ssky output.

Facets Metadata in Simple-JSON

The --simple-json format includes structured facets metadata for rich text features:

• links: URLs with byte positions and text
• mentions: User mentions with handles, DIDs, and byte positions
• tags: Hashtags with byte positions and text

Example output:

{
  "status": "success",
  "data": [{
    "uri": "at://...",
    "cid": "...",
    "author": {
      "did": "did:plc:...",
      "handle": "user.bsky.social",
      "display_name": "User Name",
      "avatar": "https://..."
    },
    "text": "Check out https://example.com @user.bsky.social #bluesky",
    "created_at": "2024-01-01T00:00:00.000Z",
    "facets": {
      "links": [
        {
          "url": "https://example.com",
          "byte_start": 10,
          "byte_end": 30,
          "text": "https://example.com"
        }
      ],
      "mentions": [
        {
          "handle": "user.bsky.social",
          "did": "did:plc:...",
          "byte_start": 31,
          "byte_end": 49,
          "text": "@user.bsky.social"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        {
          "tag": "bluesky",
          "byte_start": 50,
          "byte_end": 58,
          "text": "#bluesky"
        }
      ]
    }
  }]
}

Useful Examples

# Reply to your last post
ssky post "Update!" --reply-to $(ssky get myself --limit 1 --id)

# Search your own posts
ssky search "keyword" --author myself

# Save your timeline to files
ssky get --output ./timeline

🤖 IDE Integration

Cursor Agent MCP Tools

ssky provides comprehensive MCP (Model Context Protocol) tools for seamless integration with Cursor Agent, enabling AI-powered Bluesky interactions directly in your development environment.

Features:

• 📋 10 comprehensive tools: Complete Bluesky functionality
• 🤖 AI-optimized: Long format defaults for better AI understanding
• 🔧 Full feature support: Posts with images, quotes, replies, search, social actions
• ⚡ Real-time integration: Direct Bluesky interaction from Cursor

Quick Setup:

# Install ssky with the MCP extra
pip install 'ssky[mcp]'

# Copy the sample configuration
mkdir -p .cursor
cp mcp/mcp.sample.json .cursor/mcp.json

# Set your Bluesky credentials
export SSKY_USER=your-handle.bsky.social:your-password

# Restart Cursor to load the MCP tools

The MCP server is a Python process that runs over stdio, so uvx works without installing anything permanently — see mcp/mcp.sample.json.

Alternative Setup:

• Docker: cp mcp/mcp.docker.sample.json .cursor/mcp.json uses the pre-built ghcr.io/simpleskyclient/ssky-mcp image, which is pulled automatically on first use. Useful if you would rather not have a Python environment involved.
• For existing MCP setup: Add the ssky server to your .cursor/mcp.json (see the sample files above)
• For local development: Use cd mcp && ./build.sh && cd .. to build the image locally
• Complete guide: See MCP Documentation

Available Tools:

• ssky_get, ssky_search, ssky_user, ssky_profile - Content retrieval
• ssky_post - Content creation with images/quotes/replies
• ssky_follow, ssky_unfollow, ssky_repost, ssky_unrepost - Social actions
• ssky_delete - Content management

📖 Complete MCP Documentation

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome. CONTRIBUTING.md covers development setup, the Dev Container, running the tests, and how to open a pull request.

Please read the claiming convention there before you start work: comment on an issue to claim it, and check whether an open pull request already references it.

📝 Requirements

• Python 3.12 or later

📜 License

MIT License

👥 Author

SimpleSkyClient Project