Verified Bots Directory

Directory / Social previews

Mastodon (link preview fetcher)

Listed only

The generic link-preview fetcher built into Mastodon server software (FetchLinkCardService, using the http.rb gem), run independently by every self-hosted instance. There is no single operator, IP range, or ASN to verify against — traffic can originate from any of thousands of instances.

Operated by Mastodon gGmbH · Official documentation

User agents

Patterns this directory matches, with real observed strings.

  • regexhttp\.rb/[\d.]+ \(Mastodon/[\d.]+;
  • observedhttp.rb/2.2.2 (Mastodon/1.5.1; +https://example-masto-instance.org/)

How to verify

No verification recipe published by the operator.

Good Bot Practices scorecard

  • Identifies honestly

    Stable UA token documented (1 pattern)

  • Verifiable

    Operator publishes no verification path

  • Respects robots.txt

    Honors robots.txt

  • Behaves

    Crawl-rate behavior is operator-declared; not machine-verifiable from this dataset

  • Reachable operator

    Operator and documentation published

Measured against the Good Bot Practices.