Hey all, I just found out about Red Dwarf by Whey.Party, and all the sudden I am liking ATProtocol a lot more.

Red Dwarf is a client that uses Constellation a self-hosted JSON API to an atproto-wide index of PDS record back-links. Basically Constellation scrapes all the links off of the ATProtocol firehose and creates a queriable index, and Red Dwarf uses it to pull content directly from users PDS, eliminating the need to go through AppView Servers (like bsky.social) to follow and maintain access to user activity.

What does this mean for the Fediverse? Well for one thing Constellation creates a pathway to mirror BlueSky content without interacting with AppViews, and includes not only posts but also comments and other user interactions. Is this how BridgyFed already works? I don’t know but either way it seems great, as it means that bsky.social admins can’t block Fediverse access to BlueSky user content, even if a user is banned, so long as their PDS is hosted elsewhere.

This also makes me wonder whether using a BlueSky PDS as a sort of “warm storage” backup for Fediverse content using a bridge the other way might not make sense for those users (like myself) who have been a bit critical about the lack of account portability/control while also critical of the AppView cost based de-facto centralization of BlueSky. Is this the freaky social horcrux I’ve been looking for?

Anyway, very cool and already functional client built on shiny new social index, Red Dwarf is worth a gander.