An underappreciated #atproto feature is that whenever apps want to update your data: 1. they ask your PDS for permission, 2. your PDS asks you, 3. you can say no, + 4. your PDS enforces your wishes As of today, the @tranquil.farm PDS UX lets you give "partial no" answers to question 3. Bravo!
Trezy
This is awesome. I made a PR last week to add better support and display for permission-sets to the OAuth consent screen for @tranquil.farm. Now every time I log in to my Atmosphere account, I can actually see my fingerprints on Tranquil. 😍 #atproto
Jul 26, 2026 at 7:10 PM
How do we talk about atproto to non-developers?
The beauty of AT Protocol is that all of your data from different apps is available on your PDS, your own folder on the internet containing your stuff as JSON. This means that you can switch which app you use to view that data, without losing anything. It also makes it very easy to make connections between data stored using different lexicons, or just display activity in one place. Sifa does a nice job of this on your profile page. For web developers, and people who understand webhosting, the concept is reasonably easy to understand. I know that any atproto app I join is going to store data in my PDS, any other people will be able to see it.
atproto made simple: granular permissions - underreacted
Embracing ATProto, part 1: Setting up a PDS
In this series of posts, I'll explore my journey into setting up my workflows and services for atproto. The first step is setting up my PDS. Let's start with a bit of explanation for all this lingo.
Adversarial ATProto PDS Migration | Blog
An ATProto account lives on a Personal Data Server (PDS), and that service needs to be hosted somewhere by someone. There are a lot of options here, like a Raspberry Pi in your closet, a rented VPS in a datacentre, or a batteries-included service like bsky.social.
Permissioned data is a love triangle - Nick's Blog
Permissioned data is a love triangle between the user, the identities they grant permissions to, and the applications everyone uses to view controlled data. We don't need to change or reinvent the protocol to have it, because ATProtocol already supports 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.petan atproto permissioned data pattern i hope/expect to see flourish is apps using the "simplespace" authority on the user's PDS and not minting any space credentials at all, just using oauth portable, private data that the user can selectively expose without necessarily revealing the atproto records
I recently got super into the ATProto spec and how different services use PDS to store the data, I put together a quick client-only website that presents all those records in a single, consolidated feed of all my activity: at.diego.codes
at.diego.codes — Diego Vicente
at.diego.codesThis seems like a crucial questions about what "data ownership" means for atproto. If the 3rd party doctrine applies, as Mike suggests, then I'm not sure it's possible to claim ownership unless it's self-hosted or it doesn't apply to your PDS host. Something to watch when permissioned data lands.
Tynan Purdy ⁂
@masnick.com I’m listening to your interview with @reckless.bsky.social. This third party doctrine is interesting. Do you think that atproto data would be considered properly owned by the account individual? Would be interesting implications if that public data fall under search and seizure rights.
Rehashing this... if the main concern for atproto clients writing directly to the PDS is not having optimistic writes, then I don't get why we'd want to move towards a app server architecture as opposed to a local-first one. Are there other examples when server side computation is necessary?
The politics of purely client-side apps
pfrazee.leaflet.pub
