Support staging micropub servers

[capjamesg]

I have been testing my micropub server live using Quill now that I'm almost done. One issue I have encountered is that I cannot set a staging URL to which I can send test requests. I have had to change the micropub URL on my website to and from the staging URL during testing.

This may be somewhat of an edge case but it has been a major pain point while testing Quill. Some proposed ideas:

• Allow users to specify a test URL as a header on their website to which they can send requests
• Allow Quill to refresh a site without having to log out and authenticate from scratch

I am unsure whether these have broader interest so I'd like to hear from the community.

[jamietanna]

My implementation of a staging server is similar to yours - I have a separate identity + Micropub server for this purpose.

It appears that others in the community may be looking at the draft scope instead for this purpose

(Originally published at: https://www.jvt.me/mf2/2020/09/dstzp/)

[jamietanna]

Regarding logging in and logging out - I'd thoroughly recommend Firefox multi-account containers for this - I use it and it makes it super easy to flip between accounts and servers

(Originally published at: https://www.jvt.me/mf2/2020/09/c1qwk/)

[capjamesg]

Thank you for the recommendation! I did not know that I could just authenticate in different environments. Would that solve my initial problem?

am no longer actively working on my micropub client but I think there will be others who have a similar issue. Even if I authenticate in a different session, I would still need to manually change the header tags on my site with my staging URL.

A potential solution could be to have a <meta> tag that lets a user specify a staging URL. Let me know if I am missing something obvious :)

[jamietanna]

Yes that's correct - if you wanted to continue using your primary identity URL, you'd need to update <meta> tags / Link HTTP headers.

For that reason, and to reduce risk of accidentally pushing something to my live site, when testing my staging infrastructure, I chose a separate identity, www.staging.jvt.me which simply hosts <meta> links to my staging server.

(Originally published at: https://www.jvt.me/mf2/2020/09/btcur/)

[capjamesg]

Thanks for sharing your approach! It seems better to set up a staging site on which I could test first before setting up the main endpoint. I am no longer actively working on my micropub client but I think this documentation could be helpful for others.