mastodon-collector/README.md

Mastodon Collector

Collects posts, replies, and mentions from a list of Mastodon accounts and stores them in PostgreSQL. Includes a web UI for account management and data browsing, plus JSON/CSV APIs for your analysis pipeline.

Quick Start

# 1. Add accounts to monitor
echo "@user@mastodon.social" >> accounts.txt

# 2. Start everything
docker compose up -d

# 3. Open the dashboard
open http://localhost:8585

Architecture

Service	Description	Port
db	PostgreSQL 16	5432
web	Flask dashboard (Gunicorn)	8585
collector	Background service, polls every 4 hours	—

Adding Accounts

Two methods:

1. Text file — edit accounts.txt, one handle per line (@user@instance.social). Picked up on next collection cycle.
2. Web UI — go to http://localhost:8585/accounts and use the form.

Configuration

Edit .env to customize:

POSTGRES_PASSWORD=collector_secret      # Change for production
FLASK_SECRET_KEY=change-me-in-production
POLL_INTERVAL_SECONDS=14400             # Default: 4 hours (14400s)

API Endpoints

For plugging into your analysis pipeline:

Endpoint	Description
GET /api/stats	Overview stats (counts by type)
GET /api/statuses	Paginated statuses as JSON
GET /export	Download all statuses as CSV

/api/statuses parameters

• page — page number (default: 1)
• per_page — results per page (default: 100, max: 500)
• account_id — filter by internal account ID
• type — filter by status type: post, reply, mention, reblog
• since — ISO datetime, only return statuses after this time

Database Schema

Main tables:

• monitored_accounts — accounts being tracked
• statuses — collected posts with plain text + HTML content
• mentions — who was @-mentioned in each status
• media_attachments — images/videos attached to statuses
• tags — hashtags used
• collection_logs — audit trail of each collection run

Each status stores raw_json with the full Mastodon API response for future analysis needs.

Moving to a Server

# Copy the project
scp -r mastodon-collector/ user@server:~/

# On the server
cd mastodon-collector
# Edit .env with production secrets
docker compose up -d

Stopping

docker compose down          # Stop services, keep data
docker compose down -v       # Stop services AND delete database