Posthive — social media scheduling

Schedule posts to 13 social platforms from the command line. Every command outputs structured JSON.

Setup

If the user isn't already logged in, run posthive login — it opens their browser to sign in and stores credentials in ~/.posthive/config.json. No API key needed. Check with posthive whoami first if unsure.

Alternatively, env vars always take priority over the stored login (useful for CI or scripts):

export POSTHIVE_API_KEY=ph_xxx        # Posthive → Settings → API Keys (Pro/Team plan)
export POSTHIVE_API_URL=http://localhost:3001   # optional — only for self-hosted Posthive, defaults to https://api.posthive.co

Run commands with npx posthive-cli or posthive if installed globally (npm i -g posthive-cli).

Workflow

1. Always start with accounts:list to get valid account IDs — never guess IDs.
2. Create posts with posts:create. Posts are saved as DRAFTS by default — the user reviews them in Posthive before anything publishes. Only pass --schedule when the user explicitly asks to schedule directly.
3. Use posts:approve to promote a draft to the scheduled queue.

Commands

# Auth (only if not already logged in)
posthive login
posthive whoami
posthive logout

# List connected accounts (do this first)
posthive accounts:list

# Create a draft post
posthive posts:create --content "Hello world" --accounts id1,id2

# Create with first comment (link/hashtags go here, not the caption)
posthive posts:create --content "Big launch today" --accounts id1 --first-comment "Details: https://example.com"

# Schedule directly (skips draft review — only when user explicitly asks)
posthive posts:create --content "Hello" --accounts id1 --schedule 2026-07-10T09:00:00Z

# With media (upload first, then reference the returned URL)
posthive upload ./image.png
posthive posts:create --content "Check this out" --accounts id1 --media https://...returned-url...

# Instagram Reel / Story (media required)
posthive posts:create --content "New reel" --accounts ig_id --media <video_url> --media-type reel

# YouTube Short
posthive posts:create --content "Title here" --accounts yt_id --media <video_url> --youtube-type short

# Queue management
posthive posts:list --status draft
posthive posts:get <post_id>
posthive posts:update <post_id> --content "Fixed typo"
posthive posts:approve <post_id> --schedule 2026-07-10T09:00:00Z
posthive posts:duplicate <post_id>
posthive posts:delete <post_id>

# Templates
posthive templates:list
posthive templates:use <template_id> --accounts id1 --content "Optional override"

# Dry run (full pipeline, no real API calls)
posthive posts:create --content "Test" --accounts id1 --dry-run

Platform notes

Platform	Char limit	Notes
Bluesky	300
Threads	500
Mastodon	500
X (Twitter)	280	Pro/Team plan, no links
LinkedIn	3,000	Link in first comment performs better
Instagram	2,200	Image/video required; use --media-type for reel/story
YouTube	—	Video required; use --youtube-type short or video
Pinterest	500	Image required
Facebook Pages	63,206
Telegram	4,096
Nostr	—
Discord	2,000	Webhook-based; no first comment
Tumblr	—	NPF format; image posts supported

When posting to multiple platforms at once, keep content within the smallest char limit of the selected platforms, or create separate posts per platform with tailored content.

Best practices

• Keep a human in the loop: default to drafts, let the user approve.
• Timestamps are ISO 8601 UTC (e.g. 2026-07-10T09:00:00Z). Confirm the user's timezone before scheduling.
• Put links and hashtag walls in --first-comment rather than the main content on LinkedIn and Instagram.
• On errors, the CLI exits non-zero and prints {"error": "..."} to stdout.