Tutorials

Tutorials provide hands-on, step-by-step guides to building ActivityPub applications with Django ActivityPub Toolkit. Each tutorial teaches core concepts through practical examples, building complete working applications from scratch.

Getting Started

Start here if you are new to the toolkit. This tutorial builds a federated journal application where users write entries and share them across the Fediverse. You will learn the reference-first architecture, how Context definitions and namespaces work, how context models implement vocabularies, and the fundamentals of ActivityPub federation.

Best for: Developers building their first ActivityPub application or wanting to understand the toolkit's design principles.

Creating Custom Context Models

Learn to extend the toolkit with custom vocabularies. This tutorial shows how to handle platform-specific extensions like Mastodon's features and how to create entirely new vocabularies for specialized domains. You will implement context models, register them for automatic processing, and query across multiple vocabularies.

Best for: Developers integrating with existing Fediverse platforms or building applications with domain-specific data models.

Handling Incoming Activities

Implement the server-to-server (S2S) receive side of federation. This tutorial covers inbox endpoints, authentication via HTTP Signatures, notification processing, and activity handlers. You will process Follow, Like, Create, and Announce activities, updating your application state based on federated actions.

Best for: Developers who need their applications to respond to actions from remote servers and users.

Publishing to the Fediverse

Implement the server-to-server (S2S) send side of federation. This tutorial covers creating activities, managing collections like outboxes and followers, addressing for delivery, and WebFinger discovery. You will make your content visible to followers across the Fediverse.

Best for: Developers who need their users' content and actions to federate to other servers.

Building a Generic ActivityPub Server

Build a protocol-level server that implements both Client-to-Server (C2S) and Server-to-Server (S2S) APIs. This tutorial creates a generic server using only the toolkit's context models, supporting OAuth authentication for clients and any ActivityStreams object type. Multiple clients can use the same server for different purposes.

Best for: Developers building ActivityPub infrastructure, creating servers for multiple client applications, or implementing the full ActivityPub specification including C2S.

Tutorial Progression

The first four tutorials build on each other, progressively adding federation capabilities to a journal application. The fifth tutorial demonstrates an alternative architecture for generic servers. Work through them in order for the best learning experience, or jump to specific tutorials based on your needs.