Built on open standards

The social web is a set of open protocols, not a product. Archival implements the two W3C recommendations at its heart, so a site we host takes part without a plugin or a line of code.

W3C Recommendation

ActivityPub

The protocol behind Mastodon, Threads, Pixelfed and the rest of the fediverse. An Archival site is an account people can follow, and every deploy delivers what changed.

Read the spec
W3C Recommendation

Webmention

The simplest way for one page to tell another that it linked to it. Archival receives, verifies and keeps mentions of your pages, and sends them when your posts link out.

Read the spec
Stewards of the social web

Social Web Foundation

The nonprofit working to grow a healthy, open social web on ActivityPub. We build to the standards it stewards, and we read its blog to see where the web is going next.

Visit the foundation Read their blog

Your site is an account

Add an activitypub section to your site and it becomes something people can follow: @blog@example.com, from Mastodon, Threads, Misskey, Micro.blog and hundreds of other apps. Follow the Bridgy Fed bot and your posts reach Bluesky too.

There is nothing to run. Archival answers WebFinger and serves your actor, inbox and outbox. Every time your site deploys, the people following it get what you added, changed or removed. Pin a post with a single boolean field.

Your content is published by Archival to followers on Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky and other ActivityPub servers, and their follows, likes, boosts and replies come back. YOUR CONTENT post/hello.toml title = "Hello, world" published_at = 2026-10-10 pinned = true body = """ edit in the editor, or git push publish ARCHIVAL HOSTING ✓ WebFinger discovery ✓ Actor profile ✓ Inbox and outbox ✓ Delivery on every deploy /.well-known/webfinger · /_archival/ap/ @blog@example.com Create · Update · Delete Follow · Like Boost · Reply FOLLOWED FROM Mastodon Threads Bluesky · via Bridgy Fed Misskey Micro.blog + hundreds more
  1. 1 Map a post type's fields once. The content is what you already write.
  2. 2 Archival serves WebFinger, the actor, inbox and outbox, and delivers each deploy.
  3. 3 Followed from anything that speaks ActivityPub, and Bluesky through Bridgy Fed.

Pages that talk to each other

Webmention is how the open web replies. When a blog on WordPress, Ghost or micro.blog links to one of your pages, its site tells yours. Archival takes the mention, fetches the page to confirm the link, and reads its microformats to learn whether it is a reply, a like, a repost, a bookmark or a plain mention.

It works in both directions. Map a post type and every link in your posts sends a mention of its own when you deploy. Likes and replies from Mastodon and Bluesky arrive the same way through Bridgy.

A page on another site links to yours and sends a webmention, which Archival verifies and keeps. When your post links out, Archival sends a webmention to the other site on deploy. THEIR SITE YOUR SITE their-blog.com/notes/42 Replying to example.com/post/hello MICROFORMATS h-entry in-reply-to p-author webmention verified example.com/post/hello /_archival/webmention ✓ Link verified ✓ Kept as a reply or a like, repost, bookmark or mention AND THE OTHER WAY their-blog.com/notes/42 /webmention ✓ Verifies, shows your reply as a comment under their post webmention verified post/hello.toml content = """ Loved their-blog.com/notes/42 ✓ Mention sent on deploy Archival serves it as microformats
  1. 1 A page elsewhere links to yours, and its site sends a mention.
  2. 2 Archival fetches that page, confirms the link, and keeps the mention by kind.
  3. 3 One of your posts links out, and Archival tells the other site on deploy.
  4. 4 Their site verifies it against a microformats page Archival serves for you.

Bring the conversation home

Replies, likes and boosts from the fediverse, and mentions from other sites, are kept with your site rather than on someone else's server. A small carrier reads them when a visitor asks, so a post's page can show the whole thread under it: a comment from Mastodon beside a reply from a blog, with no database to run.

What you show is up to you. A carrier is a filter you write, not a queue you work. Your site stays static, fast and yours, and the conversation comes to it.

Replies from Mastodon, likes from Bluesky and webmentions from blogs are kept by Archival and read by a carrier, which shows them as a thread under the post on your own site. FROM EVERYWHERE Ana @ana@mastodon.social reply Kai Bluesky, via Bridgy Fed like Sam's blog webmention reply Archival keeps it verified · stored nothing to run site.activitypub.replies() site.webmentions.list() carrier Replies · 3 12 likes · 4 boosts 1 from Bluesky
  1. 1 Likes, boosts, replies and mentions arrive from wherever people already are.
  2. 2 Archival verifies and keeps them. No database of your own.
  3. 3 A carrier reads them when a visitor asks, and your page shows the thread.

Turned on in one file

Both protocols are configured the same way: name the fields of your objects that make up a post, and Archival does the rest. Everything it publishes is your content, read from the files already in your repo. Nothing in the section is itself sent anywhere.

Write it by hand, or ask the editor's task mode to add it for you. Remove the section and your site stops federating. Add it back and it picks up where it left off, followers and all.

archival_editor.toml 
[activitypub]
username = "blog"
follow = ["@bsky.brid.gy@bsky.brid.gy"]

[activitypub.actor]
object = "site"
summary = "bio"
icon = "logo"

[activitypub.objects.post]
name = "title"
content = "body"
published = "published_at"
featured = "pinned"

[webmention]

[webmention.objects.post]
name = "title"
content = "body"
published = "published_at"
  1. 1 The account: a handle on your domain, a profile from your site object, and the Bridgy Fed bot for Bluesky.
  2. 2 Posts: the fields that make up each one. A boolean pins it.
  3. 3 Webmention: receive with an empty section, send by mapping a post type.

Own your audience

Followers follow your domain. Redesign, rename your objects or go quiet for a year: the account stays put and everything it published is still there.

No plugins to maintain

ActivityPub and Webmention are part of Archival's hosting, not an add-on. There is nothing to install, update or keep patched, and every site we host gets both.

Standards, not platforms

We implement the W3C recommendations as written, so your site works with every app that does the same, including the ones that have not been built yet.

Still just a website

Your pages build to static HTML and your content lives in plain files in a git repo. The social web is a layer on top, and it never gets in the way.

Join the social web.

Start from a template, map your posts, and publish. Your site is followable in minutes.

Already on Archival? Add the section to archival_editor.toml, or ask task mode to do it for you.

Build your site Read the docs