Crier: Cross-Post Your Content Everywhere

Source: Dev.to

Overview

crier is a command‑line tool for cross‑posting content to multiple platforms simultaneously.
It lets you write a post once and publish it to dev.to, Ghost, WordPress, Hashnode, Medium, Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, Telegram, Discord, and more.

pip install crier

The Problem

Maintaining a blog and reaching audiences on several platforms usually involves tedious manual steps:

• Copying content to dev.to
• Creating a Bluesky post with a link
• Tooting on Mastodon
• Posting an announcement to Discord, etc.

Each platform has its own interface, API, and quirks.

Solution: Publish Everywhere with One Command

crier publish post.md --to devto --to bluesky --to mastodon --to discord

The command:

• Publishes the full article to dev.to
• Creates a Bluesky post with title, description, and link
• Toots on Mastodon with hashtags derived from your tags
• Sends an embed announcement to your Discord server

Supported Platforms

Markdown Input Format

crier reads standard Markdown files with optional YAML front matter:

---
title: "My Post Title"
description: "A brief description"
tags: [python, cli, automation]
canonical_url: https://myblog.com/my-post
---

• For blog platforms – the full article is published.
• For social platforms – a short announcement with a link back to canonical_url is created.

GitHub Actions Integration

Combine crier with GitHub Actions to automate cross‑posting on every push.

Initialize the Action

crier init-action

This creates a workflow file and sets up API keys as GitHub secrets.

Example Workflow (.github/workflows/crosspost.yml)

name: Cross-Post Content

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
    paths:
      - 'posts/**/*.md'

jobs:
  crosspost:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-python@v5
        with:
          python-version: '3.12'

      - run: pip install crier

      - name: Cross-post to platforms
        env:
          CRIER_DEVTO_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.CRIER_DEVTO_API_KEY }}
          CRIER_BLUESKY_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.CRIER_BLUESKY_API_KEY }}
        run: |
          crier backfill ./posts --yes

      - name: Save publication state
        run: |
          git config user.name "github-actions[bot]"
          git add .crier/
          git diff --staged --quiet || git commit -m "Update publication registry"
          git push

Publication Registry

crier maintains a registry (.crier/registry.yaml) that tracks what has been published:

posts:
  "posts/my-article.md":
    title: "My Article"
    publications:
      devto:
        id: "12345"
        url: https://dev.to/user/my-article
      bluesky:
        id: "abc123"

Adding a new platform later will automatically backfill existing content.

CLI Reference

Setting API Keys

crier config set devto.api_key YOUR_DEV_TO_KEY
crier config set bluesky.api_key "handle.bsky.social:app-password"
crier config set mastodon.api_key "mastodon.social:access-token"

Defining Profiles

Create ~/.config/crier/config.yaml:

profiles:
  blogs: [devto, hashnode]
  social: [bluesky, mastodon]
  all: [blogs, social]

Use a profile:

crier publish post.md --profile all

Links

• PyPI:
• GitHub:
• Documentation: