Create a Local Actor

Overview

Create a local actor so a Joomla user can publish to the Fediverse with a followable identity on your own domain. This gives the user a discoverable profile and lets their articles federate correctly.

You usually need this immediately after the baseline setup is complete, because publishing and shortcode rendering depend on an actor existing for the relevant Joomla user. The current workflow provisions the actor from the Joomla user record, so the practical way to create one is to save the user once while the Fediverse user plugin is enabled. After you finish, the actor should appear in the Fediverse actors list and be ready for editing or publishing.

Before you begin

• Plugin User - Fediverse must be enabled.
• The user account must exist in Joomla.
• The site should already have passed the core setup checks on the Fediverse dashboard.
• Decide which Joomla user should own the local Fediverse identity.

Steps

1. Open Users -> Manage.
2. Open the Joomla user who should receive a local actor.
3. Review the user record and make sure this is the correct publishing identity.
4. Click Save or Save & Close.
5. Open Components -> Fediverse -> Actors.
6. Find the actor mapped to that Joomla user.
7. Confirm the actor exists and is enabled.

Check your result

• The actor appears in the actors list.
• The actor can be selected and edited.
• Publishing content by that user routes through this actor.
• The actor can be refined further with account identity settings such as display name and summary.

Troubleshooting

No actor appears after saving the user

• Likely cause: User - Fediverse is disabled or the save action did not trigger actor provisioning correctly.
• Solution: Confirm the user plugin is enabled, save the same user again, and then refresh the Actors list.

The actor exists but is disabled

• Likely cause: The actor was created successfully, but its active state was changed afterward.
• Solution: Open the Actors view and enable the actor before using it for publishing.

Actor creation still fails

• Likely cause: Core Fediverse setup is incomplete or another baseline requirement is missing.
• Solution: Run the dashboard diagnostics again and resolve any failing setup checks before retrying the user save.

Related tasks

• Enable or Disable an Actor
• Manage Actor Account Identity
• Publish a Federated Article