Building new applications on ATProto, the protocol powering Bluesky’s social network and other emerging apps, is becoming more accessible. During the ATmosphere community conference in Seattle, Bluesky’s Chief Technology Officer, Paul Frazee, provided insights into future developments for the protocol aimed at facilitating application expansion.
One of the significant enhancements is the upcoming implementation of the OAuth authentication standard. Although still in a testing phase and not yet finalized, OAuth will enable developers to create user accounts within ATProto-based apps, manage sessions, and access core account data more effectively. For end users, OAuth will simplify and secure the app login process by enabling sign-in options similar to those provided by major tech companies such as Google or Apple. Discussions are ongoing regarding how this user interface should be branded, particularly regarding the visibility of the “Bluesky” name, which is just one of many applications within the ATProto ecosystem.
Another anticipated development is the ability to publish lexicons—schemas that define the structure of data records—directly on ATProto. This will facilitate the introduction of new applications by allowing developers to use pre-existing lexicons from the community, such as those for recipe-sharing or event scheduling apps. Applications encountering unfamiliar records can utilize a DNS-like lookup to understand and integrate new data types.
Additionally, later this year, the Bluesky team plans to explore methods for managing privately shared data, which will enable new features requiring private information, such as bookmarks. Users have expressed interest in features similar to those in Signal or WhatsApp, such as end-to-end encryption. Progress might be supported by ongoing developments in the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol, endorsed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Frazee highlighted the increasing interest in MLS across various technology platforms.
Further enhancements include developing ways to improve relays—components of the AT Protocol infrastructure that provide network data for other services. Reducing the requirement for relays to maintain full archives will make running them more cost-effective and scalable. Work is also in progress to enhance user experience regarding account migrations and support transitions to Bluesky’s servers, expanding current capabilities that only support migrations away.
These updates were reported by TechCrunch following the ATmosphere Conference in Seattle.
