Weekly 2025-08-22

note: this was an earlier draft version of this post, which is unfortunately missing some sections, many links, and some edits that i had added before publishing! atproto growing pains for publishing, <3 leaflet, content sync is hard!

What I thought this week would be:

• Finish the microcosm website update
• Sketch out the atproto linked-data post and spec
• Review a big exciting UFOs client data handling contribution (deferred: she's still working on it!)
• Constellation API updates
• Get slingshot running under process supervision 😬
• Chase some potential funding
• Hopefully work a bit on at://advent

But someone cut the fibre internet cable to my house on Monday, so this week was more like:

• Incident response
• Resilience work and planning

Which, hey! Also important things 🙂

~

Building on microcosm

• anisota.net by @dame.is fetches user profile card stats from constellation
• @pattern.atproto.systems by @nonbinary.computer now fetches neighbour replies with constellation, for additional context before acting
• a feed recommendation system from @l4.pm uses constellation
• @dropanchor.app by @tijs.org is now using slingshot for handle resolution
• atproto-snake by @ewancroft.uk is also now using slingshot for handle resolution!
• leaflet-loader-astro by @dane.is.extraordinarily.cool‬ is additionally also using slingshot for handle resolution!!
• skylite by @whey.party uses constellation for backfill and spacedust for notifications! and seems to be self-hosting spacedust! 🔥

Conversations

• constellation api idea: endpoint to crawl all backlinks by target DID (including those referencing deleted or non-existent content) by @neko.moe.observer
• re: optimizing constellation queries from @maxine.puppykitty.racing‬
• meta: a shoutout from brendan from @leaflet.pub!
• discussion of requestCrawl for indie relays
• idea: index latest-N records per user per collection (in the microcosm discord -- join here!)
• ideas for a higher-level atproto query language that could operate over various data backends like constellation

~

below are the rough notes from the week as i went (super ignore-able)

monday

• home internet died. got constellation onto cellular backup after a few hiccoughs, kept status timely public status updates. nothing to do until the ISP tech comes tuesday (earliest they had).

tuesday

• internet restored
• rerouted fibre so modem is next to router
  1. bunch of homelab physical stuff, wall mounting etc
• rented a small vultr vps for a secondary gateway (executing on previous resilience planning)
• wrote a postmortem: https://updates.microcosm.blue/3lws6pkugu22k
• purchased EasyDNS's DNS Pro for microcosm.blue
  1. found out that namecheap doesn't have a zone export booo

wednesday

• week reassessment :D
• UFOs client data model contribution quick review (PR still pending)
• website progress!
  1. little logos for constellation, spacedust, and slingshot
  2. quickstart code snippets for each, in python, bash, and javascript respectively
     1. runnable! (with a little js magic)

thursday

• fix the whats-hot feed on UFOs
• website progresssssss
• debugged sync problems for 3rd party pds on relays (microcosm and bsky both!)

friday

• debugged more deactivated state stuff, ran a large survey of the network