Social media managers spend hours crafting posts, finding images, and hitting "publish." What if a single terminal command could do all of that — research a topic, write an engaging post, generate a matching image, and publish it to your Facebook Page automatically?
That's exactly what Garudust does. It's an open-source AI agent written in Rust that connects to any OpenAI-compatible LLM (local or cloud) and runs multi-step workflows through a simple skill system.
In this guide, you'll set up Garudust and run a fully automated Facebook post workflow from scratch.
What You'll Build
One command → one full Facebook post:
garudust "use skill facebook-workflow, post about AI news today, page_id=YOUR_PAGE_ID"
The agent will:
- 🔍 Search the web for recent news on your topic
- 📄 Read and summarize the best article it finds
- 🎨 Generate a matching image with overlay text
- ✍️ Write a detailed post with hashtags in your target language
- 📢 Publish everything to your Facebook Page — no manual steps
Prerequisites
Before you start, make sure you have:
- Rust (stable) — install via rustup.rs
- A Facebook Page you manage
- A Facebook Developer App with
pages_manage_postspermission - An LLM endpoint — local (vLLM / Ollama) or cloud (OpenRouter / Anthropic)
- Optional: A Hugging Face token for AI image generation
Step 1 — Install Garudust
cargo install garudust
Then run the interactive setup wizard:
garudust setup
This creates two files:
-
~/.garudust/config.yaml— non-secret settings -
~/.garudust/.env— API keys and tokens
Step 2 — Configure Your LLM
Garudust separates settings from secrets. Open ~/.garudust/config.yaml:
# Non-secret settings — safe to share or commit
model: Qwen/Qwen3-14B-AWQ # or gpt-4o, claude-3-5-sonnet, etc.
provider: vllm # vllm | ollama | anthropic | openrouter
base_url: http://localhost:8000/v1
context_window: 32768
compression:
enabled: true
threshold_fraction: 0.65
Then add your secrets to ~/.garudust/.env:
# Secrets only — never put model or URL here
VLLM_API_KEY=your-vllm-key
HF_TOKEN=hf_xxxxxxxxxxxx
💡 Design principle:
config.yamlholds everything that isn't a secret (model name, provider, URLs, behavior tuning)..envholds only API keys. This makes it trivial to share your config without leaking credentials.
Using a cloud provider instead? Here's how each maps:
| Provider | config.yaml | .env |
|---|---|---|
| vLLM (local) |
provider: vllm + base_url
|
VLLM_API_KEY |
| Ollama (local) |
provider: ollama + base_url
|
(none needed) |
| Anthropic | provider: anthropic |
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY |
| OpenRouter | provider: openrouter |
OPENROUTER_API_KEY |
Step 3 — Get a Facebook Page Access Token
- Go to developers.facebook.com → My Apps → create a new app
- Add the Facebook Login product
- Open the Graph API Explorer, select your app and your Page
- Generate a token with these permissions:
pages_manage_postspages_read_engagement
- Exchange it for a long-lived Page Access Token (valid 60 days)
- Add it to your
.env:
FACEBOOK_ACCESS_TOKEN=EAAxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Your Page ID is visible in Page Settings under About, or in the Page URL.
Step 4 — Install the Skill and Tools
garudust skill install facebook-workflow
This pulls the skill from garudust-hub and automatically installs the required tools: facebook_post and generate_image.
Verify everything is in place:
garudust skill list
# ✓ facebook-workflow v3.0.0
garudust tool list
# ✓ facebook_post
# ✓ generate_image
# ✓ web_search
# ✓ web_fetch
Step 5 — Run Your First Auto-Post
garudust "use skill facebook-workflow, research latest AI news, write a detailed post, generate an image, post to page_id=831735183365530"
Watch the agent work through each step:
[web_search] searching: AI news 2025...
[web_fetch] fetching top result...
[generate_image] creating /tmp/fb_post_image.png...
[facebook_post] publishing to page 831735183365530...
Posted — ID: 831735183365530_122126910027165465
[5 iter | 24657in 689out @ Qwen3-14B-AWQ]
Your post is live. ✅
How It Works Under the Hood
The facebook-workflow skill is a plain Markdown file at:
~/.garudust/skills/facebook-workflow/SKILL.md
It guides the agent through four steps:
Step 1 — Research → web_search + web_fetch (1 search, 1 fetch)
Step 2 — Image → generate_image (1024×576, with overlay text)
Step 3 — Post → facebook_post (page_id + message + image_path)
Step 4 — Report → confirm post_id or surface the error
Each step explicitly tells the model which tool to call and when. This prevents weak models from staying in "text mode" and skipping tool calls entirely — a common failure mode in multi-step agent workflows.
Automatic Context Management
For models with small context windows (e.g. 27K tokens), Garudust handles overflow automatically:
- Compresses conversation history when it reaches 65% of the context limit
- Caps
max_tokensatcontext_window / 8to always leave room for input - Retries with a smaller output budget (
/16→/32) if the first attempt still overflows
You don't need to think about tokens — just set context_window in config.yaml and the agent handles the rest.
Step 6 — Customize the Post Format
The post format is defined directly in the skill file. Edit it:
nano ~/.garudust/skills/facebook-workflow/SKILL.md
Find the post format section and adjust it to your style:
**Post format (minimum 200 words):**
[hook — 1–2 attention-grabbing sentences, use a question or surprising fact]
[background — why this matters, 2–3 sentences of context]
[main content — facts, figures, and deep details from research, 3–4 sentences]
[real example — a company, product, or case study, 2–3 sentences]
[impact & trends — what this means for the future, 2–3 sentences]
[call to action — ask for opinions or suggest next steps, 1–2 sentences]
#hashtag1 #hashtag2 #hashtag3 #hashtag4 #hashtag5
Want posts in English instead of Thai? Change the language note. Want longer posts? Raise the minimum word count. The model will follow whatever format you define here.
Step 7 — Automate with a Daily Cron Job
Create a shell script:
# /usr/local/bin/daily-ai-post.sh
#!/bin/bash
garudust "use skill facebook-workflow, latest AI technology news, write a detailed post, generate an image, post to page_id=YOUR_PAGE_ID" \
>> ~/.garudust/post.log 2>&1
Make it executable and add it to cron:
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/daily-ai-post.sh
crontab -e
# Post every day at 9:00 AM
0 9 * * * /usr/local/bin/daily-ai-post.sh
That's it — fully automated daily posts with zero manual work.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
required tool facebook_post not called |
Model skipped the tool call | Retry, or switch to a stronger model |
HTTP 400 context overflow |
Prompt too long for context window | Reduce context_window or set a smaller web_fetch limit |
FACEBOOK_ACCESS_TOKEN not set |
Missing secret | Add to ~/.garudust/.env
|
| Post published but has no image |
generate_image failed silently |
Check HF_TOKEN in .env
|
| Token expired after 60 days | Short-lived token used | Regenerate a long-lived Page Access Token |
What to Try Next
-
Multiple languages — add
"write in English"or"write in Japanese"to your task - Topic rotation — pass a topics array in a shell script and pick one per day
- Multiple pages — loop over page IDs to cross-post automatically
-
Custom image styles — edit the
generate_imageprompt in the skill to match your brand
Links
Garudust is fully open source:
- Agent: github.com/garudust-org/garudust-agent
- Skill & Tool Hub: github.com/garudust-org/garudust-hub
The hub has community-contributed skills and tools — install any of them with a single garudust skill install command. If you build something useful, contributions are welcome.