fedify-dev/hollo 0.8.0

Hollo 0.8.0

on GitHub

Released on April 27, 2026.

• Added support for separating worker nodes from the web server for better scalability in high-traffic scenarios. This allows running web server and background workers (Fedify message queue and import worker) in separate processes, preventing heavy federation workloads from slowing down web server responsiveness. This is particularly beneficial for instances with thousands of followers where a single post can generate thousands of outbox messages. [#350]

  • Added NODE_TYPE environment variable to control which components run in each process: all (default, current behavior), web (web server only), or worker (workers only).
  • All nodes share the same PostgreSQL database, which acts as the message queue backend using LISTEN/NOTIFY for real-time message delivery.
  • Added comprehensive documentation for Docker Compose, systemd, and manual deployment setups with worker separation.
  • Added pnpm worker script for running worker-only nodes.

• Reduced idle memory usage by lazy-loading several heavy dependencies and startup-only code paths based on actual memory measurements. This lowers the baseline footprint of NODE_TYPE=all, web, and worker deployments, especially on single-user instances with filesystem storage. [#435]

  • Markdown formatting now loads Shiki only when rich text formatting is actually needed, instead of at server startup.
  • Filesystem deployments no longer pull S3-specific storage code into the initial web server startup path.
  • The web server and worker process now import each other's code paths only when the selected NODE_TYPE needs them.
  • Preview card scraping, media processing, and authentication helpers now load on demand instead of eagerly during route registration.

• Added a production build step powered by tsdown, and changed pnpm prod and pnpm worker to run the compiled JavaScript output with Node.js instead of running TypeScript through tsx. Docker images now build these JavaScript files in a builder stage and include them in the runtime image. [#357]

• Moved remote replies scraping from synchronous post ingestion to a rate-limited background worker. Remote posts now enqueue reply collection scraping jobs instead of fetching nested replies inline, which prevents slow or very large remote reply collections from delaying federation processing. [#445, #447]

  • Added per-origin throttling and 429 Too Many Requests backoff for remote replies scraping.
  • Added bounded scraping controls: REMOTE_REPLIES_SCRAPE_DEPTH, REMOTE_REPLIES_SCRAPE_MAX_ITEMS, REMOTE_REPLIES_SCRAPE_INTERVAL_SECONDS, REMOTE_REPLIES_SCRAPE_BACKOFF_SECONDS, and REMOTE_REPLIES_SCRAPE_COOLDOWN_SECONDS.

• Added automatic refresh of stale remote actor profiles. When receiving activities like Announce or Create(Note), Hollo now checks if the actor's cached data is stale and asynchronously refreshes their profile in the background. This helps keep remote actor information (avatars, display names, etc.) up to date without relying solely on Update activities from remote servers. [#348]

  • Added REMOTE_ACTOR_STALENESS_DAYS environment variable to configure how many days before a remote actor's data is considered stale. Defaults to 7 days.
  • Added REFRESH_ACTORS_ON_INTERACTION environment variable. When set to true, checks for stale actors on all activity types (likes, emoji reactions, follows, etc.). When false (default), only checks on activities that appear in timelines (Announce, Create).

• Added Mastodon 4.5-compatible quote post APIs. The quote field on Status entities now uses the Mastodon Quote entity format ({ state, quoted_status }) instead of the previous Fedibird-style flat status format. The quote_id field is kept for backward compatibility.

  • Added quoted_status_id parameter to POST /api/v1/statuses as the Mastodon 4.5 way to create quote posts (alongside existing quote_id).
  • Added quotes_count field to Status entities.
  • Added quote_approval field to Status entities indicating whether a post can be quoted.
  • Added GET /api/v1/statuses/:id/quotes endpoint to list quotes of a post with cursor-based pagination.
  • Added POST /api/v1/statuses/:id/quotes/:quoting_status_id/revoke endpoint to let users revoke quotes of their posts.
  • The quote_approval_policy parameter is accepted but ignored (all public/unlisted posts are freely quotable).

• Added automatic cleanup of unreachable remote actors on permanent delivery failures. When sending activities to followers' inboxes fails permanently, Hollo now cleans up the associated records to avoid retrying delivery to dead servers.

  • On 404 Not Found: removes follower relationships for the failed actor so that future activities are no longer delivered to them. The account record itself is preserved.
  • On 410 Gone: deletes the remote account entirely (along with associated follows, mentions, likes, etc. via cascade) since the actor is explicitly marked as permanently gone.

• Improved inbox handling for deleted remote actors using Fedify 2.1.0's unverified activity hooks. Hollo now acknowledges unverifiable Delete activities with 202 Accepted when the signing key fetch fails with 410 Gone, preventing repeated delivery retries for actors that have already been permanently deleted.

• Optimized follower-only status visibility checks by preloading approved follow relationships and reusing simple WHERE IN conditions for status, conversation context, quote, and timeline queries. [#173, #448]

• Added FEDIFY_DEBUG environment variable to enable the Fedify debugger, an embedded real-time dashboard for inspecting ActivityPub traces and activities. When enabled, the debug dashboard is accessible at /__debug__/. Intended for development use only.

• Added outbound activity ordering keys for stateful federation actions, using Fedify 2.0's ordered message delivery support. This ensures remote servers process related actions in order, including post create/update/delete, reblog/unreblog, like/unlike, emoji reaction/unreaction, follow request lifecycle messages, block/unblock, and post updates triggered by replies and poll votes.

• Fixed remote account force refresh and actor refresh getting stuck when a canonical fediverse handle had moved to a new actor IRI while a stale remote account row still claimed the old handle. Hollo now verifies the canonical handle owner via WebFinger, deletes the stale remote account and its dependent data, and then updates or inserts the current actor. When the conflict cannot be verified safely, force refresh now shows an explicit canonical handle conflict error instead of failing with a raw database unique-constraint error. [#424]

• Added profile-specific tagged post pages at /:handle/tagged/:tag, so users can browse only posts from a given profile that use a particular hashtag. The Mastodon-compatible GET /api/v1/accounts/:id/statuses endpoint now also applies its existing tagged query parameter to filter account timelines by hashtag. [#420]

• Added an account-level preference for whether content warnings should be expanded by default. The setting is available in the dashboard account editor and is now returned from GET /api/v1/preferences, which helps clients like Phanpy honor each account's preferred CW behavior. [#425]

• Fixed Mastodon API compatibility for clients such as the official Mastodon iOS app by returning empty arrays for unimplemented trends and suggestions endpoints instead of 404 Not Found responses. The suggestions endpoints still require an authenticated user token. [#421, #427 by Vignesh]

• Added a new dashboard page for thumbnail cleanup at /thumbnail_cleanup. Thumbnails from remote posts that have not been bookmarked, liked, reacted to, shared nor quoted by a local account before a given cut-off data can be mass-deleted in order to lower storage demand. The original posts are not deleted, neither is the relationship to the original media nor the alt text. [#409, #436 by aliceif]

• Upgraded Fedify to 2.1.10.