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Show HN: I built a social media management tool in 3 weeks with Claude and Codex
- xnx 7mo agoIsn't automated posting forbidden by most platforms, and will risk getting any account banned?
- hirako2000 7mo agoThat depends on the platform. And can change at any moment. The same applies to paid for tool..this merely makes it open source/ self hosted.
- JanSchu 7mo agoEach platform has an api that you can use to post. You just have to setup a developer account for each platform
- samteeeee 7mo agosetting up the developer account is easy, but getting approval from each platform is quite tedious! I've recently been thru it with my social media scheduling tool (mallary.ai), did you get approval from all the platforms yet?
- mercatop 7mo ago[dead]
- JanSchu 7mo agoI wanted to test how far AI coding tools could take a production project. Not a prototype. A social media management platform with 12 first-party API integrations, multi-tenant auth, encrypted credential storage, background job processing, approval workflows, and a unified inbox. The scope would normally keep a solo developer busy for the better part of a year. I shipped it in 3 weeks. Before writing any code, I spent time on detailed specs, an architecture doc, and a style guide. All public: https://github.com/brightbeanxyz/brightbean-studio/tree/main/development_specs https://github.com/brightbeanxyz/brightbean-studio/tree/main... I broke the specs into tasks that could run in parallel across multiple agents versus tasks with dependencies that had to merge first. This planning step was the whole game. Without it, the agents produce a mess. I used Opus 4.6 (Claude Code) for planning and building the first pass of backend and UI. Opus holds large context better and makes architectural decisions across files more reliably. Then I used Codex 5.3 to challenge every implementation, surface security issues, and catch bugs. Token spend was roughly even between the two. Where AI coding worked well: Django models, views, serializers, standard CRUD. Provider modules for well-documented APIs like Facebook and LinkedIn. Tailwind layouts and HTMX interactions. Test generation. Cross-file refactoring, where Opus was particularly good at cascading changes across models, views, and templates when I restructured the permission system. Where it fell apart: TikTok's Content Posting API has poor docs and an unusual two-step upload flow. Both tools generated wrong code confidently, over and over. Multi-tenant permission logic produced code that worked for a single workspace but leaked data across tenants in multi-workspace setups. These bugs passed tests, which is what made them dangerous. OAuth edge cases like token refresh, revoked permissions, and platform-specific error codes all needed manual work. Happy path was fine, defensive code was not. Background task orchestration (retry logic, rate-limit backoff, error handling) also required writing by hand. One thing I underestimated: Without dedicated UI designs, getting a consistent UX was brutal. All the functionality was there, but screens were unintuitive and some flows weren't reachable through the UI at all. 80% of features worked in 20% of the time. The remaining 80% went to polish and making the experience actually usable. The project is open source under AGPL-3.0. 12 platform integrations, all first-party APIs. Django 5.x + HTMX + Alpine.js + Tailwind CSS 4 + PostgreSQL. No Redis. Docker Compose deploy, 4 containers. Ask me anything about the spec-driven approach, platform API quirks, or how I split work between the two models.
- hyperionultra 7mo agoWhy postgre instead of classic mysql?
- hk__2 7mo agoWhy mysql instead of postgres should be the right question nowadays.
- dewey 7mo agoPostgres isn't a newcomer any more. For most projects that I see it's the default and the "classic" already.
- purerandomness 7mo agoMySQL does not let you have transactional DDL statements (alter, create, index etc). If you're building anything serious and your data integrity is important, use Postgres. Postgres is much stricter, and always was. MySQL tried to introduce several strict modes to mitigate the problems that they had, but I would always recommend to use Postgres.
- JanSchu 7mo agoPostgres is simply a battle proven technology.
- rvz 7mo agoExactly. Thank you for choosing Postgres for this. Well done.
- faangguyindia 7mo agosuch apps should use sqlite. it's enough for this type of app.
- eb0la 7mo agoMySQL or Postgres are the DB of choice if you want a managed database in the cloud. Probably Postgres is there because you can use it as a queue (https://livebook.manning.com/book/just-use-postgres/chapter-11 https://livebook.manning.com/book/just-use-postgres/chapter-...)
- benmarten 7mo agoNo x?
- cyanydeez 7mo agoDo people still think twitter is a valuable place (besides being bot owners).
- brobdingnagians 7mo agoIt seems like geopolitical statements and international announcements happen a lot on Twitter/X these days.
- cyanydeez 7mo agoAre those statements actionable or simply to feed polymarket and US stocks.
- bengale 7mo agoI know some people have ideological things going on that make them choose different networks, but they have more than half a billion active users so it's not exactly a ghost town.
- spiderfarmer 7mo agoIn The Netherlands it’s a full on crazy town. I’m not kidding. It’s bottom of the barrel vitriolic garbage. Not one positive , insightful or interesting tweet among them.
- rocketpastsix 7mo agohow many of those "active" users are just bots?
- rglullis 7mo agoI go check it out once a month, it's nothing but bots, AI hustlers and Musk jerking. Why would any brand actively invest in their presence there?
- FireInsight 7mo agoI am genuinely in the "target market" for a tool such as this, but having evaluated one previously I found the quality and self-hosting experience to be pretty bad, and that a proprietary freemium product was still a better experience. I'm hesitant to even take a look at this project due to the whole "vibe coded in 3 weeks" thing, though. Hearing that says to me that this is not serious or battle-tested and might go unmaintained or such. Do you think these are valid concerns to have?
- spicyusername 7mo agoWe're entering an era where the delivering of software is cheap. Basically any idea can have an MVP implemented by one or two people in just a month or two now. Very quickly the industry is learning what the next set of bottlenecks are, now that the bottleneck is no longer writing code. Planning, design, management alignment, finding customers, integrating with other products, waiting for review, etc. Basically all the human stuff that can't be automated away. Your comment reminds me to add building a support team to the list.
- localhoster 7mo agoWas it ever? Even before llm, writing software, or at least web clients, was as easy as it can get.
- written-beyond 7mo agoI agree, software (software startups) has always been the golden child of investors because of how cheap it is compared to hardware or any other physical good. Good software is expensive regardless of the involvement of LLMs because you need someone to take responsibility. Large companies will save a buck because there may be fewer people needed to take said responsibility, but it's probably a marginal saving compared to the overall scheme of things.
- varispeed 7mo agoIt was "easy" in the sense you could deploy 7B equivalent of a developer, who could get something sort of working eventually or you could spend a lot of money for actually getting the results from talented developers - equivalent of daily maxing out Opus 4.6.
- ms7892 7mo agoWoah! I was looking for something like this from a long time
- themonsu 7mo agoDoes it work with multiple social accounts? E.g. if I have 100 customers whose social medias I manage for content posting.
- JanSchu 7mo agoyes
- nottorp 7mo agoIs it in Rust too?
- throwatdem12311 7mo agoWhy does it matter how long it took you to make it?
- Serhii-Set 7mo ago[dead]
- domo__knows 7mo agoLegitimately cool project OP. As a Django developer working in the social space I'm sure I'll be referencing your workflows.
- johannschulz 7mo ago[dead]
- ipaddr 7mo agoI was hoping this was the opposite of a creators platform - a social media users platform. Download all social media to one place (stories/posts) where you can view on your own schedule. Is there anything like that out there?
- echelon 7mo agoYou can build one in three weeks with Claude. I'm not joking - you'll have energy for side projects you never had before, and you'll finish them.
- vlachen 7mo agoI'm taking the submission as: if you've got an idea, here's some methods to work build something. I have a few ideas if my own, perhaps yours is something that could be created.
- foobar_______ 7mo agoSame. I was hoping for this. As much as social media frustrates me, the content can be great at times. I want an aggregation tool where I have strict control on the output. Give me the content minus the addictive never ending scroll with inflammatory posts. Basically, I want a benevolent curation of media on my terms.
- itherseed 7mo agoI want the same. The problem is that this kind of tool is outside the T&C of the platforms, and if they catch you using it, you would probably be banned or suspended. There will be always a small risk of that.
- jezzamon 7mo agoPlatforms really don't want you to build that. But depends on what platforms your talking about, open ones like bsky and mastodon could allow for something like that
- xnx 7mo agoBig upvote for this. I want an "agent" (overused term) to scroll through all the user-hostile feeds and present what I actually want to see in a calm, ad-free, manner. Tools like instaloader are a start, but screen scraping might be the best bet to avoid detection/banning.
- banbangtuth 7mo agoJust curious. Why Python? Why not say, Go or TypeScript? Yes you can make TypeScript server rendered too without React stuffs.
- alexdobrenko 7mo agohas there been any final word on whether social platforms are throttling posts that come from platforms like this?
- samteeeee 7mo agotiktok certainly seems to prefer if you post a draft using api and then manually publish it using the tiktok app on your phone, but the other platforms like youtube, instagram and facebook don't seem to mind. Its also recommended that you warm up an account manually before posting to it using an api. I've recently built and agent first social media scheduling tool: https://mallary.ai https://mallary.ai
- pbiggar 7mo agoCan you add support for UpScrolled? https://upscrolled.com/en/ https://upscrolled.com/en/
- JanSchu 7mo agoI'll add to the implementation list
- kuba-orlik 7mo agoI don't get it. The app is about social media, but its website is smth about YouTube Intelligence API for AI Agents. Not sute what to make of it
- tuo-lei 7mo ago[dead]
- criddell 7mo agoNice! A bot-built tool for posting content mostly generated by other bots and engaged with by bots. I don't mean to belittle the cool tool you made, I'm just grumpy about the loss of what the social network could have been and what we got when it morphed into social media.
- BatFastard 7mo agowhat do you imagine the social network would/could/should become? Obviously what we have is not working for some folks.
- slake 7mo agoI actually like 2006 twitter. Almost pleasant because of its obscurity. - Only 140 characters - Increasing that added to the slop. Brevity was soul - No 'For you' algo. You had to find and follow the people you wanted to follow and then read all of their posts - RTing it was literally adding RT in front of the other person's tweet. - There was a 'like' icon (I think - don't remember) - There was no paid 'verified' accounts. You had to signal your official twitter account through different means. - There was no monetization for random clickbait ragebait content. - Ads are not that intrusive on twitter. That as a monetization strategy still works. - You only discovered people and not content.
- kate23_human 7mo ago[dead]
- maxothex 7mo ago[dead]
- slopinthebag 7mo agoAI generated README, AI generated code, and the creator can't even be bothered to write comments without generating them with AI (which btw goes against the rules of this site). How is this being upvoted - did the creator use his own tool to bot this submission?
- iqihs 7mo agoprobably AI upvoted as well, i'm flabbergasted as to how something like this can end up on the front page
- cistseljak 7mo agogood luck with your endeavors.
- canarias_mate 7mo ago[flagged]
- michaelavina 7mo agoI think it’s great work!
- hickmandev 7mo agoNice, I've been trying to try something like this but I wasn't sure if paying to try was affordable. Will give it a good look to this. Great Work.
- thomasquarre 7mo agoReally impressive to ship something this complete in 3 weeks. The multi platform scheduling problem is genuinely hard, especially around OAuth token refresh and rate limit handling across networks like LinkedIn and Instagram that have particularly strict policies. Curious how you handled the queue and retry logic when a scheduled post fails partway through on one platform but not the others. Did you end up building a per platform state machine or something simpler?
- ali_mouiz 7mo agoSpec-first was the unlock for me too. The agent drifts badly without it. Your point about defensive code is spot on, happy path works fine, but retry logic, edge cases, error handling all needed manual work in my experience too. The 80/20 observation is real. Functionality is fast, making it actually trustworthy takes most of the time. I also added tons of unit-test, it helped ai agent to detect regression while producing code.
- jusasiiv 7mo agoLots of questions already about the project so Ill ask about your vibe coding experience. After the project has grown have you found it harder to upkeep the project with AI? Also did you use any structuring while working with Claude/Codex like first planning the tasks on separate documents, or did you just work with prompts and the context that were generated on the sessions?
- cyuille 7mo agoDo you plan on adding support for other platforms? Like Reddit or Twitter/X?
- gmatt 7mo agoCurious on the choice of AGPLv3? Technically that forces anybody who would modify it/use it as a baseline for their own product to share the source code. Is this a purposeful decision?
- Olivia_Pan 7mo ago[flagged]