I see lots of discussion about moving from PDS to PDS, which is great. But in the long term, I have misgivings about using an identity whose rotation keys are controlled by someone else, and even if we remove the bsky keys after migrating, they are still at the root of any DID they created.
Mar 23, 2026 at 3:27 AM
What the hell is a rotation key? - HItchhikers Guide to the atmosphere
Why it's important that YOU should have a rotation key and backups for your Bluesky/AT Protocol account that is hosted on a third party PDS
What the hell is a rotation key? - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Atmosphere
Why it's important that YOU should have a rotation key and backups for your Bluesky/AT Protocol account that is hosted on a third party PDS
Registering Identity Recovery Keys via PDS, using goat | bryan newbold
One of the big design goals for atproto is for users to "own their network identity". If something goes wrong with a hosting provider, it should be possible recover accounts by independently updating their identity to point at a new home. Every account in the network has both a handle and a DID. Th...
rekmarks/bluesky-account-migrator
A simple CLI for migrating Bluesky accounts from one PDS to another.
rekmarks/bluesky-account-migrator
A simple CLI for migrating Bluesky accounts from one PDS to another.
Running Bluesky PDS undockered
A bit over a year ago, in the first week of January 2025, I migrated my main Bluesky account to my own PDS on a Netcup VPS. It’s been quite easy to set up using the official installer, and it’s been running pretty much without any problems or maintenance the whole year.
Actually, having one Identity for yourself is a Breaching Experiment
This should really be a comment to Henry’s post, but I have the keys to this car, so I’m going to drive it, too. We have Zuckerberg’s remark:
How to edit `did:plc` rotation keys · bluesky-social atproto · Discussion #3366
I have migrated my Bluesky handle rekmarks.com to my own PDS. I am trying to replace one of its rotation keys. Here's what I observe: I check the rotation keys returned by com.atproto.identity....
1/X I made an atproto proposal around PDS to PDS repo migration that gets around all of the pain points of account migration today and intentionally builds a migration flow for users to go to the PDS that they want to move to and commence the migration from there.
0014 repo migration pds by afbase · Pull Request #91 · bluesky-social/proposals
github.comYou can sign up for @inspo.land with your bluesky account! under the hood it creates a new private PDS using bsky for auth still a bit finicky sometimes, so lmk if you run into any issues!
here is how i've been explaining PDS migration to the 115 users i've migrated: imagine your bluesky account as being an apartment. you're upset the rent is changing, so you move to a cheaper apartment on the other side of town. after you move, you have to update your address with the post office.
daniel holmgren 🫠
& you lose if you say the word "protocol", "decentralized", "repo", or "pds" to illustrate: the cloud is "the thing where i keep my photos when i drop my phone in a lake". if you even mention a "server" while explaining the cloud then you lost the thread
here is how i've been explaining PDS migration to the 115 users i've migrated: imagine your bluesky account as being an apartment. you're upset the rent is changing, so you move to a cheaper apartment on the other side of town. after you move, you have to update your address with the post office.
daniel holmgren 🫠
& you lose if you say the word "protocol", "decentralized", "repo", or "pds" to illustrate: the cloud is "the thing where i keep my photos when i drop my phone in a lake". if you even mention a "server" while explaining the cloud then you lost the thread
Yesterday we launched a new feature and now our existing web users can bring their own DID or we can be a temporary custodian of a new identity. Either way, now every user's PDS is the source of truth for public events and rsvps. openmeet.net/your-identity-your-events #ATprotocol
Your Identity, Your Events: How OpenMeet Gives Every User an AT Protocol Account
openmeet.net
