🔧 Update dependencies and enhance cookie authentication support

Author: ma2za

README.md

@@ -22,16 +22,19 @@ Set the following environment variables by creating a **.env** file:
 
     EMAIL=
     PASSWORD=
+    PUBLICATION_URL=  # Optional: your publication URL
+    COOKIES_PATH=     # Optional: path to cookies JSON file
+    COOKIES_STRING=   # Optional: cookie string for authentication
 
 ## If you don't have a password
 
-Recently Substack has been setting up new accounts without a password. If you sign-out and sign back in it just uses
+Recently Substack has been setting up new accounts without a password. If you sign out and sign back in, it just uses
 your email address with a "magic" link.
 
 Set a password:
 
-- Sign-out of Substack
-- At the sign-in page click, "Sign in with password" under the `Email` text box
+- Sign out of Substack
+- At the sign-in page, click "Sign in with password" under the `Email` text box
 - Then choose, "Set a new password"
 
 The .env file will be ignored by git but always be careful.
@@ -51,11 +54,12 @@ from substack.post import Post
 api = Api(
     email=os.getenv("EMAIL"),
     password=os.getenv("PASSWORD"),
+    publication_url=os.getenv("PUBLICATION_URL"),
 )
 
 user_id = api.get_user_id()
 
-# Switch Publications - The library defaults to your users primary publication. You can retrieve all your publications and change which one you want to use.
+# Switch Publications - The library defaults to your user's primary publication. You can retrieve all your publications and change which one you want to use.
 
 # primary publication
 user_publication = api.get_user_primary_publication()
@@ -98,9 +102,9 @@ post.add({"type": "embeddedPublication", "url": embedded})
 
 draft = api.post_draft(post.get_draft())
 
-# set section (THIS CAN BE DONE ONLY AFTER HAVING FIRST POSTED THE DRAFT)
-post.set_section("rick rolling", api.get_sections())
-api.put_draft(draft.get("id"), draft_section_id=post.draft_section_id)
+# set section (can only be done after first posting the draft)
+# post.set_section("rick rolling", api.get_sections())
+# api.put_draft(draft.get("id"), draft_section_id=post.draft_section_id)
 
 api.prepublish_draft(draft.get("id"))
 
@@ -120,3 +124,7 @@ Set up pre-commit
 ```shell
 pre-commit install
 ```
+
+## Cookie Help
+
+To get a cookie string, after login, go to dev tools (F12), network tab, refresh and find one of the requests like subscription/unred/subscriptions, right click and copy as fetch (Node.js), paste somewhere and get the entire cookie string assigned to the cookie header and put it in the env variables as COOKIES_STRING, et voila!

examples/publish_post.py

@@ -22,21 +22,34 @@
     parser.add_argument(
         "--publish", help="Publish the draft.", action="store_true", default=True
     )
+    parser.add_argument(
+        "--cookies",
+        help="Path to cookies JSON file for authentication (optional, can also be set via COOKIES_PATH or COOKIES_STRING env vars).",
+        type=str,
+        default=None,
+    )
     args = parser.parse_args()
 
     with open(args.post, "r") as fp:
         post_data = yaml.safe_load(fp)
 
+    cookies_path = args.cookies or os.getenv("COOKIES_PATH")
+    cookies_string = os.getenv("COOKIES_STRING")
+
     api = Api(
-        email=os.getenv("EMAIL"),
-        password=os.getenv("PASSWORD"),
+        email=os.getenv("EMAIL") if not cookies_path and not cookies_string else None,
+        password=os.getenv("PASSWORD") if not cookies_path and not cookies_string else None,
+        cookies_path=cookies_path,
+        cookies_string=cookies_string,
         publication_url=os.getenv("PUBLICATION_URL"),
     )
 
+    user_id = api.get_user_id()
+
     post = Post(
         post_data.get("title"),
         post_data.get("subtitle", ""),
-        os.getenv("USER_ID"),
+        user_id,
         audience=post_data.get("audience", "everyone"),
         write_comment_permissions=post_data.get(
             "write_comment_permissions", "everyone"
@@ -53,7 +66,7 @@
 
     draft = api.post_draft(post.get_draft())
 
-    post.set_section(post_data.get("section"), api.get_sections())
+    # post.set_section(post_data.get("section"), api.get_sections())
     api.put_draft(draft.get("id"), draft_section_id=post.draft_section_id)
 
     if args.publish:

poetry.lock

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 [tool.poetry]
 name = "python-substack"
-version = "0.1.15"
+version = "0.1.16"
 description = "A Python wrapper around the Substack API."
 authors = ["Paolo Mazza <mazzapaolo2019@gmail.com>"]
 license = "MIT"
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ python-dotenv = "^0.21.0"
 PyYAML = "^6.0"
 
 
-[tool.poetry.dev-dependencies]
+[tool.poetry.group.dev.dependencies]
 
 
 [build-system]

pyproject.toml

@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
 import logging
 import os
 from datetime import datetime
-from urllib.parse import urljoin
+from urllib.parse import urljoin, unquote
 
 import requests
 
@@ -35,6 +35,7 @@ def __init__(
         base_url=None,
         publication_url=None,
         debug=False,
+        cookies_string=None,
     ):
         """
 
@@ -49,6 +50,10 @@ def __init__(
             To re-use your session without logging in each time, you can save your cookies to a json file and
             then load them in the next session.
             Make sure to re-save your cookies, as they do update over time.
+          cookies_string
+            To re-use your session without logging in each time, you can provide cookies as a semicolon-separated
+            string (e.g., "cookie1=value1; cookie2=value2"). This is useful when copying cookies from browser
+            developer tools.
           base_url:
             The base URL to use to contact the Substack API.
             Defaults to https://substack.com/api/v1.
@@ -68,11 +73,15 @@ def __init__(
                 cookies = json.load(f)
             self._session.cookies.update(cookies)
 
+        elif cookies_string is not None:
+            cookies = self._parse_cookies_string(cookies_string)
+            self._session.cookies.update(cookies)
+
         elif email is not None and password is not None:
             self.login(email, password)
         else:
             raise ValueError(
-                "Must provide email and password or cookies_path to authenticate."
+                "Must provide email and password, cookies_path, or cookies_string to authenticate."
             )
 
         user_publication = None
@@ -98,6 +107,31 @@ def __init__(
         # set the current publication to the users primary publication
         self.change_publication(user_publication)
 
+    @staticmethod
+    def _parse_cookies_string(cookies_string: str) -> dict:
+        """
+        Parse a semicolon-separated cookie string into a dictionary.
+        
+        Args:
+            cookies_string: A semicolon-separated string of cookies (e.g., "cookie1=value1; cookie2=value2")
+            
+        Returns:
+            A dictionary of cookie name-value pairs
+        """
+        cookies = {}
+        for cookie_pair in cookies_string.split(';'):
+            cookie_pair = cookie_pair.strip()
+            if not cookie_pair:
+                continue
+            if '=' in cookie_pair:
+                key, value = cookie_pair.split('=', 1)
+                key = key.strip()
+                value = value.strip()
+                # URL decode the value (e.g., s%3A becomes s:)
+                value = unquote(value)
+                cookies[key] = value
+        return cookies
+
     def login(self, email, password) -> dict:
         """
 
@@ -189,8 +223,8 @@ def get_publication_url(publication: dict) -> str:
         Args:
             publication:
         """
-        custom_domain = publication["custom_domain"]
-        if not custom_domain:
+        custom_domain = publication.get("custom_domain", None)
+        if not custom_domain and not publication.get('custom_domain_optional', None):
             publication_url = f"https://{publication['subdomain']}.substack.com"
         else:
             publication_url = f"https://{custom_domain}"
@@ -203,7 +237,31 @@ def get_user_primary_publication(self):
         """
 
         profile = self.get_user_profile()
-        primary_publication = profile["primaryPublication"]
+        primary_publication = None
+        
+        # Try old API format first (backward compatibility)
+        if "primaryPublication" in profile and profile["primaryPublication"] is not None:
+            primary_publication = profile["primaryPublication"]
+        else:
+            # New API format: look for primary publication in publicationUsers
+            publication_users = profile.get("publicationUsers")
+            if publication_users is not None and len(publication_users) > 0:
+                # Find the publication where is_primary is True
+                for pub_user in publication_users:
+                    if pub_user.get("is_primary", False):
+                        primary_publication = pub_user.get("publication")
+                        if primary_publication:
+                            break
+                
+                # If no primary found, use the first publication
+                if primary_publication is None:
+                    primary_publication = publication_users[0].get("publication")
+        
+        if primary_publication is None:
+            raise SubstackRequestException(
+                "Could not find primary publication in profile"
+            )
+            
         primary_publication["publication_url"] = self.get_publication_url(
             primary_publication
         )
@@ -220,10 +278,18 @@ def get_user_publications(self):
         # Loop through users "publicationUsers" list, and return a list
         # of dictionaries of "name", and "subdomain", and "id"
         user_publications = []
-        for publication in profile["publicationUsers"]:
-            pub = publication["publication"]
-            pub["publication_url"] = self.get_publication_url(pub)
-            user_publications.append(pub)
+        publication_users = profile.get("publicationUsers")
+        
+        if publication_users is None:
+            # If publicationUsers is None, return empty list or try to construct from other fields
+            # This maintains backward compatibility while handling new API format
+            return user_publications
+        
+        for publication in publication_users:
+            pub = publication.get("publication")
+            if pub is not None:
+                pub["publication_url"] = self.get_publication_url(pub)
+                user_publications.append(pub)
 
         return user_publications