Nostr notes by Todd Sundsted

v3.14.0 ("question authority") is the end of a long road. ...

2026-10-27T11:41:47Z

v3.14.0 ("question authority") is the end of a long road.

The goal was pluggable, algorithmic feeds. "Pluggable" because I want to drop a script into a directory to add a new algorithm—not recompile the server. "Algorithmic" because I want predictable, fine-grained control over what I see and how it's organized.

I've been working on this feature, across releases, for almost four months. A recent thread gave me the motivation to just get it done!

The discussion in that thread also shaped the result: algorithmic feeds ships with four example algorithms (called "judges") that demonstrate what's possible:

quiet_posters shows posts from the people you follow whose posting frequency is in the bottom 25%
long_reads groups posts over 500 characters
community groups posts from threadiverse servers (Lemmy, PieFed, etc.)
polls puts all polls in one feed

One interesting implementation decision: the exchange format between server and judge is an SQLite database holding the batch of posts to be judged. Rather than rolling a custom data exchange format, you get a well-tested file format that brings schema support, serialization/deserialization, and a query language nearly for free.

Here is the full set of changes in this release:

Added

Algorithmic feeds, judged by executables in etc/judges.
Accept community-relayed votes authorized by the object's audience.
Include the linked SQLite3 version and its features in NodeInfo.

Fixed

Pick up a remote actor's rotated public key.
Don't save actors embedded in community-relayed activities.
Ignore community-relayed and directly delivered activities attributed to a local actor.
Reload an actor's page only when that actor's Refresh button is pressed.
Hide the Refresh button on a local actor's panel.
Fall back to the default avatar when a refreshed icon fails to load.
Enable icon repair on actor panels and actor cards.
Keep the no-replies timeline queries on the timeline index.

Changed

Judge feed posts in the background instead of in the request.
Reconcile each key once when an actor is blocked or unblocked.

#ktistec #crystallang #activitypub #fediverse

@scottjenson is "users are dumb" a response we're ...

2026-07-14T14:28:12Z

In reply to nevent1q…gr7k
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@scottjenson is "users are dumb" a response we're hearing from open source developers here on the fediverse?

"We put the exploit in a picture. The AI code reviewer never ...

2026-07-11T23:10:26Z

"We put the exploit in a picture. The AI code reviewer never opened it."

This line from the article:CodeRabbit ships with a default configuration that excludes image files from review outright (!**/*.png).

#ai #infosec

@willhbr i keep trying, but every time i pick up jj my brain ...

2026-05-29T00:39:17Z

In reply to nevent1q…ya84
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@willhbr i keep trying, but every time i pick up jj my brain breaks. i think i have so many bad git practices that no amount of jj can make sense of them.

how widely adopted/supported/implemented is FEP-8a8e? is that a ...

2026-05-16T20:13:11Z

how widely adopted/supported/implemented is FEP-8a8e? is that a safe direction to converge for federated events?

I’m working on handling OAuth token expiry as part of #ktistec ...

2026-04-26T19:59:13Z

I’m working on handling OAuth token expiry as part of #ktistec Mastodon API support. Is my understanding that Mastodon issues OAuth tokens with no expiration correct?!?

does anyone use GNU Cash? any free (software) alternatives anyone ...

2026-04-25T11:14:06Z

does anyone use GNU Cash? any free (software) alternatives anyone recommends?

@scottjenson you are absolutely not the problem here.

2026-04-06T14:54:10Z

In reply to nevent1q…kyns
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@scottjenson you are absolutely not the problem here.

@silverpill thanks! yes, as a developer. i'd love to see this ...

2026-03-29T22:05:06Z

In reply to nevent1q…dl98
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@silverpill thanks! yes, as a developer. i'd love to see this in action.

@silverpill what's the entry point for trying this out? ...

2026-03-29T20:10:28Z

In reply to nevent1q…rj2s
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@silverpill what's the entry point for trying this out? consuming portable objects?

@liaizon based on your posts, you seem to be caring and ...

2026-03-26T12:42:48Z

In reply to nevent1q…h8kz
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@liaizon based on your posts, you seem to be caring and thoughtful, but a boatload of the fediverse imo is not right now. just look at this thread. i desperately want mozilla to focus on building a better browser. but the thread devolved into a hate-fest, and that is 1) not going to bring mozilla around, 2) not going to bring the undecided over to the cause, 3) going to run off the newcomers who stumble into that, 4) turns my space here into a much more negative and unhealthy place. i predict that a list focused on tracking vibe-coded fediverse servers will quickly turn into targeting tool for the people i'm talking about here. we don't need that.

cc @mkljczk

@liaizon I think these are good concerns but I am concerned about ...

2026-03-26T12:00:50Z

In reply to nevent1q…rxkc
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@liaizon I think these are good concerns but I am concerned about the idea of “tracking”. right now my perception of the fediverse is that it has become by far the most overtly hostile social network I’ve been on with wrath regularly directed at “those who don’t conform” even if they diverge in trivial ways. and I am not the only one with a stake in this saying this! more of that made easier to direct is not going to benefit the fediverse in the long term.

@kris https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec it's an ...

2026-02-22T22:06:49Z

In reply to nevent1q…02cn
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@kris

https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec

it's an activity pub server designed for individuals (multiple users are supported but there's nothing like open registration).

nodeinfo fixed in 3b56d2a6 FEDERATION.md added in cb3ef061

2026-02-22T15:37:19Z

nodeinfo fixed in 3b56d2a6
FEDERATION.md added in cb3ef061

Before creating and publishing FEDERATION.md for #ktistec I ...

2026-02-22T13:30:57Z

Before creating and publishing FEDERATION.md for #ktistec I wanted to understand what existing practice looked like across the Fediverse.

FEP-67ff describes the requirements of the FEDERATION.md file in loose terms and provides a non-normative template. I scraped the URLs of FEDERATION.md files from FEP-67ff itself and confirmed I could fetch them. The FEP listed 30 accessible projects (31 total, but one project—FIRM—does not appear to exist).

If a file had a section with the heading "Supported FEPs" per the non-normative template, I only looked there for supported FEPs. Otherwise I scanned the entire document.

Implemented FEPs, ranked by the number of implementations that attest support, are:FEP Name #
---- --------------------------------------------------------- --
67ff FEDERATION.md 18
f1d5 NodeInfo in Fediverse Software 16
8b32 Object Integrity Proofs 7
044f Consent-respecting quote posts 7
2677 Identifying the Application Actor 7
e232 Object Links 6
1b12 Group federation 6
3b86 Activity Intents 6
521a Representing actor's public keys 5
2c59 Discovery of a Webfinger address from an ActivityPub actor 5
7888 Demystifying the context property 5
5feb Search indexing consent for actors 5
4adb Dereferencing identifiers with webfinger 4
d556 Server-Level Actor Discovery Using WebFinger 4
fb2a Actor metadata 4
ef61 Portable Objects 4
8fcf Followers collection synchronization across servers 4
844e Capability discovery 4
7628 Move actor 3
61cf The OpenWebAuth Protocol 3
c390 Identity Proofs 3
400e Publicly-appendable ActivityPub collections 3
c0e0 Emoji reactions 3
0151 NodeInfo in Fediverse Software (2025 edition) 3
fffd Proxy Objects 2
f228 Backfilling conversations 2
fe34 Origin-based security model 2
eb48 Hashtags 2
171b Conversation Containers 2
a5c5 Web Syndication Methods 2

There are obvious flaws in the methodology. Or maybe in the data. Only 18 out of the 30 projects I could access had a FEDERATION.md that attested FEDERATION.md support. Only 19 mentioned "FEDERATION.md". Only 21 mentioned "67ff". The remaining projects clearly did support FEP-67ff—the file itself was evidence. (FEDERATION.md is not meant to be machine readable—there's an issue about that).

It was more difficult to rank implemented federation protocols. I extracted keywords from documents with a "Supported federation protocols and standards" section and created a dictionary of terms. If a file had a section with the heading "Supported federation protocols and standards", I only looked there. Otherwise I scanned the entire document.Feature #
---------------- --
activitypub 26
webfinger 24
http_signatures 21
nodeinfo 19
json_ld 2
ld_signatures 2
ostatus 2
authorized_fetch 1
atproto 1

If time allows, I'm going to try to rank these documents by "utility", though I haven't yet determined the exact metric. These documents clearly provide valuable information, but their lack of standardization makes them harder to analyze systematically.

#ActivityPub #Fediverse #Fep67ff #fep

i just released an experimental version of this feature. i ...

2026-02-20T10:53:57Z

i just released an experimental version of this feature. i don't love how it looks but i do love reading this way. i'm going back through my timeline looking for chains of posts that i didn't read before that i can (more easily) read now!

#ktistec

@liaizon > The fediverse is anarchist praxis. joke (but also ...

2026-02-19T10:46:50Z

In reply to nevent1q…wj6j
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@liaizon

> The fediverse is anarchist praxis.

joke (but also not joke) and in reply to your post here, this is also why we struggle to conform to anyone else's opinion of what the standards should be 😂

I’m wondering if there are any common or standard approaches to ...

2026-01-10T21:21:13Z

I’m wondering if there are any common or standard approaches to modeling RSS feeds as ActivityPub objects?

I’m thinking of an RSSFeed actor and RSSPost or something for the items but I’d love to follow established patterns.

Friendica supports RSS feeds. Maybe that’s a good place to start?

#ActivityPub

sometimes i wish #activitypub and servers/clients supported both ...

2026-01-02T12:01:20Z

sometimes i wish #activitypub and servers/clients supported both Like and Love activities, for when liking something isn't strong enough...!

I wonder if you could use/abuse Mastodon polls (FEP-9967) to ...

2025-12-20T23:44:13Z

I wonder if you could use/abuse Mastodon polls (FEP-9967) to distribute posts that provide near-real-time status updates (I'm thinking about severe weather alerts but I'm sure there are other use cases)?

Create a poll with an expiry far in the future and a token set of options (ideally just one—"Do you opt in?"—but poll implementations seem to require at least two).

Nothing seems to prevent the content of a poll from changing—and this is the key insight. The FEP says, "The type of a poll (single choice / multiple choices) and its options might be changed at any time. In that case the author of the poll MUST reset the vote counts." So broadcast updates via the content.

It would be a lightweight way to follow a single item without following the actor, built on top of implementations that already exist.

#ActivityPub #Fep9967

Release v3.2.3 of Ktistec includes two big features: FEP-1b12 ...

2025-12-10T12:55:47Z

Release v3.2.3 of Ktistec includes two big features:

FEP-1b12 Group federation
Improved federation with Lemmy and other forum-type servers. Ktistec supports community and thread follow/unfollow, as well as up-vote/like (down-vote/dislike is supported but there is no visual affordance for that yet).
FEP-9098 Custom emojis
Support for viewing custom emoji in posts and on actor profiles. Ktistec does not yet support custom emoji creation and management.

The full changelog:

Added

Support for viewing custom emoji in posts and on actor profiles.
Actor type (Person, Group, etc.) overlay badges on actor panels.
Colored fallback avatars for actors without icons.
Support for robots.txt.

Fixed

Federation with Lemmy and other servers that support FEP-1b12.
Shared inbox support for local actors.
Serialization of Undo includes the undone activity.
Serialization of Like and Dislike does not.
Notify only once for an object's first received activity.

Changed

Accumulate metrics by hour for finer granularity.
Clean up presentation of public followers/following pages.

The next release will include support for Mastodon polls (FEP-9967).

#ktistec #crystallang #activitypub #fediverse

I've improved federation support for Lemmy and other servers ...

2025-12-07T12:20:05Z

I've improved federation support for Lemmy and other servers that support FEP-1b12 Group Federation.

I had to increase the number of available file descriptors on my personal server 4x because of the resultant inbound volume of ActivityPub activities! I liked a federated post and DOSed my server.

#ktistec #activitypub #fediverse

I've streamlined theme development in Ktistec. The theming ...

2025-11-30T17:15:15Z

I've streamlined theme development in Ktistec. The theming system uses a hierarchy of CSS custom properties and fallbacks. Theme authors can customize a theme at multiple levels:

Base Colors Only

Define only base colors like --text-primary, --bg-primary, --bg-input, --semantic-primary, etc. Derived colors will auto-generate using color-mix formulas. For example::root { --semantic-primary: #ffa500; }

From this one line, theme-appropriate colors like --bg-accent-code, --anchor-color, etc. auto-generate.

Base Colors Plus Derived Colors

Define base colors and derived colors. Derived colors use custom values when defined. Undefined derived colors auto-generate. For example::root {
--text-primary: #333;
--text-primary-2: #ff0000; /* red for this specific shade */
}

Given this theme, derived shades like --text-primary-1, --text-primary-3, and --text-primary-4 auto-generate. --text-primary-2 is red.

The simplest possible interesting theme redefines the primary semantic color. The single line above (in Base Colors Only) would result in the following, with button color, link color, disabled, selected, and hover states all derived automatically:screenshot of the setting page with the primary semantic color defined

These changes will be in the upcoming release. Existing themes will continue to work, as is.

#ktistec #crystallang #activitypub #fediverse

emacs comes with dunnet. i've never played it. today i am ...

2025-11-21T14:57:14Z

emacs comes with dunnet. i've never played it. today i am going to play it.

#emacs #interactivefiction

Vacations are wonderful. It is a privilege to be able to travel ...

2025-10-23T13:11:29Z

Vacations are wonderful. It is a privilege to be able to travel without worry. It's also wonderful to be home, and to have the time to work on projects I care about. With those thoughts in mind, I present release v3.1.1 of Ktistec, an ActivityPub server written in the Crystal programming language!

This release is a mixed bag of small features and improvements:

Added

Auto-link URLs in posts. (fixes #24)
Support searching by actor username. (fixes #102)
Support hourly granularity in metrics charts.

Fixed

Mark actor as down if refresh fails.
Remove draft posts from the everything collection.
Ignore charts with no points in the date range.
Ensure HTTP::Client instances are closed.

I added support for multiple users at the beginning of the month. I'm very interested in feedback on how that's working out for anyone using it.

#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang

wondering what’s the easiest thing around that can quickly take ...

2025-10-07T16:20:40Z

wondering what’s the easiest thing around that can quickly take a video and transcribe the audio? ideally in a way that I could add a “transcribe” button to #ktistec. i appreciate the benefits of video but it’s not the format i’m looking to consume most of the time.

@jrollans it's a loyalty test. demand something arbitrary and ...

2025-01-29T19:35:53Z

In reply to nevent1q…wh4y
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@jrollans it's a loyalty test. demand something arbitrary and see who complies.

A new release of ktistec that improves database performance is ...

2025-01-29T13:48:17Z

A new release of ktistec that improves database performance is imminent. In the past, database optimization usually meant "fixing a bunch of poorly constructed queries", and I'm sure there's more of that to do—I'm not an expert. But this time, I found most of the queries were as good as they were going to get on my watch (I'm not an expert). If you have a million records and you need to filter and count them, that's just going to take some time...

So this time, I focused on caching the results of queries like that (which really means I focused on cache invalidation, right). A case in point is commit d544b1af. Previously, the nodeinfo endpoint filtered and counted posts on every request, and it took +80msec to do that. Worse, the filtering pushed everything else out of the sqlite page cache, which made the next, unrelated database query slow!

Caching this value, and only recounting when I post something, not only dropped the service time for the request to ~1msec but actually improved database performance, generally!

More to come...

#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang

@jrollans in my case (single-user mastodon → ktistec) the only ...

2025-01-26T23:29:28Z

In reply to nevent1q…shzs
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@jrollans in my case (single-user mastodon → ktistec) the only side-effect was a lot of traffic to the new application that it didn't know how to handle (ktistec doesn't support polls, for example, and i got rid of a few extra accounts). but other than the noise in the logs, posts, shares, etc. worked once i re-followed.

Ktistec release v2.4.5 rolls out the build time and executable ...

2025-01-19T14:57:34Z

Ktistec release v2.4.5 rolls out the build time and executable size optimizations I've been blogging about here. It also fixes a few small bugs.

Fixed

Handle @-mentions with hosts in new posts.
Handle HEAD requests for pages with pretty URLs.
Destroy session after running scripts.

Changed

Delete old authenticated sessions.

I've started a branch full of query optimizations. My general rule—as highlighted in the server logs—is if a query takes longer than 50msec, it takes too long. It's time to address some problems...

#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang

@liaizon there's a brief changelog in the description of the ...

2024-12-29T15:57:32Z

In reply to nevent1q…jesc
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@liaizon there's a brief changelog in the description of the release. and a more detailed commit by commit history. the main user-facing feature was content translation support, but it took quite a lot of backend work to support it.

@jayvii i just tagged a new release. it looks like the docker ...

2024-12-29T15:18:32Z

@jayvii i just tagged a new release. it looks like the docker build built the release successfully. congratulations and thanks!

it think i've just been made a fan of the oxford comma ...

2024-04-22T15:04:59Z

it think i've just been made a fan of the oxford comma

#grammar