Discovery of the Media Endpoint Using Link Rel

[dshanske]

As Micropub Media Endpoints are often implemented as separate services from a site's "main" Micropub endpoint, it may be useful to allow Micropub clients to discover the media endpoint without needing to query the "main" endpoint at all.

Discovery of a Micropub Media Endpoint could be accomplished like Micropub endpoint discovery, with HTTP Link headers:

Link https://aaronpk.example/micropub/media; rel="micropub_media"

Or via HTML Link tag:

[manton]

In practice this probably wouldn't be used very often, because a Micropub client is going to want other information in q=config, so it might as well grab the media endpoint there too. I don't think there really needs to be 2 ways to get the endpoint.

[dshanske]

Originally proposed, I believe, by @martymcguire . Initial consensus of this at the popup discussion seems to be that there was no compelling use case to add this. However, the full background was not discussed which means this needs revisiting.

[aaronpk]

There was apparently some additional reasoning and discussion about this on the wiki. I am moving it from there so that we can continue the discussion here:

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As Micropub Media Endpoints are often implemented as separate services from a site's "main" Micropub endpoint, it may be useful to allow Micropub clients to discover the media endpoint without needing to query the "main" endpoint at all.

Discovery of a Micropub Media Endpoint could be accomplished like [https://www.w3.org/TR/micropub/#endpoint-discovery Micropub endpoint discovery], with HTTP Link headers:

Link <https://aaronpk.example/micropub/media>; rel="micropub_media"

Or via HTML Link tag:

<link rel="micropub_media" href="https://aaronpk.example/micropub/media">

Add Media support to a site whose Micropub server is missing it – With the current Media Endpoint discovery algorithm, a micropub client must ask the server whether a media endpoint is available. Micropub servers, especially those that create posts for static sites like Jekyll, don't offer media endpoint support. If a user sets up a separate micropub media endpoint, they must configure their "main" micropub server to make it available to clients - a change that could require them to edit the code of the micropub server.

Standalone Media Endpoint – Indigenous for Android supports uploading files to a media endpoint and copying the URL to the clipboard for use in any context. Separating media endpoint discovery from "main" micropub server discovery would allow micropub clients to manage media without also managing posts on the site.

This is currently implemented by:

• schmarty
• https://indieweb.org/Micropub_for_WordPress

[martymcguire]

Originally proposed, I believe, by @martymcguire . General consensus of this seems to be that there was no compelling use case to add this.

[martymcguire]

Oops, buttons.

Thanks @dshanske for originally creating this issue and double thanks @aaronpk for adding the discussion from the wiki.

@dshanske to benefit future discussion I ask that you please edit your comment above about "General consensus" to include important context. For example, when it was discussed, by whom, and what existing references/discussion were reviewed at that time, etc.