Imagining atproto as a post-app protocol starts with materializing the social filesystem – decomposing apps and their data into materials and instruments. For the time being, this guestbook is a good example where the display element is a material and the sign element is an instrument.
dan
in any case, the end game is composing these little guys, whatever goes on behind the scenes. social components
Jan 29, 2026 at 6:59 PM
What is atproto?
What is atproto? atproto is two things: A protocol for creating open social networks An open social network atproto, the open social network Today the atproto network has 36+ million users and powers Bluesky and a handful of other apps. Almost all atproto data is public. Content like posts, likes, follows, and photos/videos are publicly accessible to any network participant in a permissionless way. As an example of how open the network is, here’s how easy it is to stream all public data on the network using a public atproto Relay like bsky.network:
atpotato
creating fun apps, helpful tools, and approachable content for the atproto and bsky ecosystem
Introducing ATProto Science - Cosmik Labs
Announcing atproto.science! #ATproto has huge potential for supporting new ways of doing research, so we started @atproto.science to help bring together researchers, build community, and explore what's possible when science meets cutting-edge open social network protocols! 🧪 >
This is partly why I think atproto needs a more convincing vision about being a post-app protocol. A future where atproto is a bunch of apps and each app governs their own lexicon diminishes a lot of its potential in the long-term.
Laurens
yeah i think i might actually, theres a very interesting story here that the main thing that matters is a focal point around which consensus over a lexicon can get formed
I love that the design of atproto was in part inspired by big social Kafka and ScyllaDB server backends and @martin.kleppmann.com's Designing Data-Intensive Applications and the community immediately used it to implement thousands of apps with no backend lol
some thoughts on atproto as a post-app paradigm
Ecosystem Plugins
notes.wesleyfinck.orgsome thoughts on atproto as a post-app paradigm
Ecosystem Plugins
notes.wesleyfinck.orgMy take on the "explaining atproto" discourse is that all the UX/filesystem/etc metaphors are still very verbose and that you can explain the same idea in a lot less words: It separates data from apps, so any app can use data from any other app. That fits in a tweet, with other sentences around it.
the single most important part of atproto is the PDS as a user-controlled auth and storage layer to which clients can connect directly. death to appviews
Authenticated Transfer Enables Orchestration - nekomimi
blog.nekomimi.petAT Protocol
Bookmarks related to ATProto itself. See also “Bluesky” and “AT Protocol apps” collections
Compose | Taproot
Compose | Taproot
ATScience Ecosystem Map
Bluesky Protocol Services
Explore
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