We've released DrFed 0.1.0, the first version of our web-based platform for developing and debugging ActivityPub implementations. Built by the team behind Fedify, DrFed aims to help developers understand why their application won't federate with another server.

This release is an MVP and is not yet especially useful as an ActivityPub debugger. We're sharing what we've built so far as development continues.

In the web UI, you can create test instances that run as ActivityPub servers, generate actors, and create local Note and Article objects. Actor pages show their federation endpoints and stored objects. Each instance also has an activity log where you can inspect incoming deliveries, expand their recorded JSON-LD, and copy the source. Creating a local object does not send it to remote servers.

DrFed is available on npm and requires Node.js 26 or newer:

npm install --global @drfed/[email protected]

The package provides four commands: drfed-server runs the backend and web frontend, drfed-account creates accounts, drfed-migrate handles database migrations, and drfed-web runs a separate frontend. You can use PGlite without installing a database server, or connect to PostgreSQL.

There are bugs and missing features, and our documentation is still incomplete. The release notes include screenshots, installation and sign-in instructions, and the current limitations. For now, README.md and the package documentation are the best starting points. In the next release, we'll also publish a Docker image.

Thanks to the DrFed development team for their work on this release, and to NLnet's NGI0 Commons Fund for funding our work. We hope you'll follow along as we make DrFed more useful for ActivityPub developers. Read the full release notes and try DrFed.