Getting started

Your first session with Outpost: sign in, post a note from your phone, and install the composer to your home screen. This assumes you’ve finished Installation — IndieAuth, Micropub, and Outpost all active.

1. Open the composer on your phone

On your phone’s browser, visit:

https://your-site.example/post/

Expected result: the Outpost composer loads — a mobile-first posting screen, not your theme’s regular page layout. If you instead see a setup page naming a missing plugin, activate that plugin and reload (see Troubleshooting).

(Screenshot planned: see screenshot inventory.)

2. Sign in with IndieAuth

The composer asks you to sign in with IndieAuth — your WordPress site is the identity provider, so you sign in to your own site rather than a third-party service. Approve the sign-in when your site prompts you.

Expected result: the composer shows its posting modes and you’re ready to write.

3. Post a note

1. The composer opens on a posting tab. Pick Note if it isn’t already selected. (Site admins can change which variant opens by default — see Settings.)
2. Type a short post.
3. If you use syndication destinations, chips for each configured destination appear enabled by default — tap any chip to turn it off for this post.
4. Tap post.

Expected result: a success message with a link to the new post on your site. Open it to confirm the note published.

If you get “Posted, but the server did not return a link. Check your site to confirm it published,” do check — on a few composer variants an open bug can report success without creating a post (see Troubleshooting).

4. Install to your home screen

The composer is a PWA, so you can install it like an app:

• iOS (Safari): tap the Share button, then “Add to Home Screen.”
• Android (Chrome): accept the install banner, or open the browser menu and choose “Add to Home screen” / “Install app.”

Expected result: an Outpost icon on your home screen that opens straight into the composer.

(Screenshot planned: see screenshot inventory.)

First-run notes

• Offline posting: if you post without a connection, the draft queues on your device and submits when you’re back online. A queue indicator shows pending drafts with retry and dismiss controls.
• Companions round out the Doing modes: all composer tabs — including the Doing group (Listen, Watch, Read, Checkin, Play) — are always visible. With the Post Kinds for IndieWeb companion plugin active, those entries render as proper post kinds on your site and the media “Look it up” search works; without it they still publish, but as generic notes.
• Encryption key notice: if you plan to store API keys or connect external accounts, wp-admin may show a notice about configuring an Outpost encryption key. Sensitive settings can’t be saved until the key is set up — see Settings.
• Managed hosting: some managed WordPress hosts strip the authorization header from requests, which can break sign-in or lookups. See Troubleshooting if posting fails after a successful sign-in.

Where to go next

• Settings — composer defaults, API keys, appearance, and connections.
• Common tasks — replies, bookmarklets, the share sheet, and more.