Local Development With an AT Proto PDS

Using docker and curl to do the first steps of what could be creating an atproto app.

The Bluesky Personal Data Server (PDS) comes with instructions and automation for taking over a server and running a node connected to bsky.app, but I wanted to run a local disconnected PDS so I just muck around with creating fake users and posting data as if I was creating a new atproto app.

Inside their system is a docker container, and we can run that by itself:

docker image pull ghcr.io/bluesky-social/pds:latest

You'll probably want data somewhere other than /tmp

mkdir -p /tmp/pdsdata/blocks

PDS_ADMIN_PASSWORD=$(openssl rand --hex 16)

PDS_JWT_SECRET=$(openssl rand --hex 16)

PLC_ROTATION_KEY=$(openssl ecparam --name secp256k1 --genkey --noout --outform DER | tail --bytes=+8 | head --bytes=32 | xxd --plain --cols 32)

PDS_DATADIR=/tmp/pdsdata

PDS_HOSTNAME=foo.bar.com

cat<<EOF >/tmp/pdsdata/pds.env

PDS_HOSTNAME=${PDS_HOSTNAME}

PDS_JWT_SECRET=${PDS_JWT_SECRET}

PDS_ADMIN_PASSWORD=${PDS_ADMIN_PASSWORD}

PDS_PLC_ROTATION_KEY_K256_PRIVATE_KEY_HEX=${PLC_ROTATION_KEY}

PDS_DATA_DIRECTORY=/pds

PDS_BLOBSTORE_DISK_LOCATION=/pds/blocks

PDS_DID_PLC_URL=https://plc.directory

PDS_BSKY_APP_VIEW_URL=https://api.bsky.app

PDS_BSKY_APP_VIEW_DID=did:web:api.bsky.app

PDS_REPORT_SERVICE_URL=https://mod.bsky.app

PDS_REPORT_SERVICE_DID=did:plc:ar7c4by46qjdydhdevvrndac

PDS_CRAWLERS=https://bsky.network

LOG_ENABLED=true

NODE_ENV=development

EOF

docker run -d --name pds --restart=unless-stopped --network=host -v /b2/bolson/Bluesky/pdsdata:/pds --env-file=/b2/bolson/Bluesky/pdsdata/pds.env ghcr.io/bluesky-social/pds:latest

With that, it's probably running. If you ever need any of the secrets, there in pdsdata/pds.env

Run a couple quick queries that should return server state

curl -L 'http://localhost:3000/xrpc/com.atproto.sync.listRepos?limit=100'

curl -L 'http://localhost:3000/xrpc/com.atproto.server.describeServer'

Let's create a user. First, create an invite code:

curl -L -X POST 'http://localhost:3000/xrpc/com.atproto.server.createInviteCode' --user "admin:${PDS_ADMIN_PASSWORD}" --data-raw '{"useCount":1}' -H 'Content-Type: application/json'

This will return something like

{"code":"foo-bar-com-zx6uq-cjkle"}

Then actually create the user:

curl -L -X POST 'http://localhost:3000/xrpc/com.atproto.server.createAccount' \

-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \

-H 'Accept: application/json' \

--user "admin:${PDS_ADMIN_PASSWORD}" \

--data-raw '{"handle": "bob2.foo.bar.com","inviteCode":"foo-bar-com-zx6uq-cjkle","email":"bob2@foo.bar.com","password":"hunter2"}'

 This returns a bunch of json about the created user, the parts we need for next steps are "did" and "accesJwt", like: 

"did":"did:plc:ks35mpkznuqalfrr3drm7tfu", "accessJwt":"eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzY29wZSI6ImNvbS5hdHByb3RvLmFjY2VzcyIsImF1ZCI6ImRpZDp3ZWI6ZG8uYm9sc29uLm9yZyIsInN1YiI6ImRpZDpwbGM6a3MzNW1wa3pudXFhbGZycjNkcm03dGZ1IiwiaWF0IjoxNzI0NDI3NTk0LCJleHAiOjE3MjQ0MzQ3OTR9._uG-PTAqNLQT7PqohWFv-0lvyQtz_ud5XOwCqnjDPqs"

Let's put that in shell to make the next commands nicer

ACCESS_JWT="eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzY29wZSI6ImNvbS5hdHByb3RvLmFjY2VzcyIsImF1ZCI6ImRpZDp3ZWI6ZG8uYm9sc29uLm9yZyIsInN1YiI6ImRpZDpwbGM6a3MzNW1wa3pudXFhbGZycjNkcm03dGZ1IiwiaWF0IjoxNzI0NDI3NTk0LCJleHAiOjE3MjQ0MzQ3OTR9._uG-PTAqNLQT7PqohWFv-0lvyQtz_ud5XOwCqnjDPqs"

The first couple 'admin' APIs used HTTP user:password with the user as 'admin' and the password set for the whole server in setup back in pds.env. Later actions as a user put the access JWT blob into the Authorization header.

Post a record! (note validate=false because I'm not posting proper lexicon data)

curl -L -X POST 'http://localhost:3000/xrpc/com.atproto.repo.createRecord' \

-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \

-H 'Accept: application/json' \

-H 'Authorization: Bearer '${ACCESS_JWT} \

--data-raw '{"repo":"did:plc:ks35mpkznuqalfrr3drm7tfu","collection":"com.bar.wat","rkey":"aoeustnh1234098","validate":false,"record":{"a":"foo","b":1234}}'

That should return json with info about the new created record. Then I did that a few times with different "rkey" and tweaking the record contents each time.

List the records back out:

curl -L 'http://localhost:3000/xrpc/com.atproto.repo.listRecords?repo=did:plc:ks35mpkznuqalfrr3drm7tfu&collection=org.bolson.vote'

Should return json:

{records:[{...},{...},{...}], "cursor":"some rkey"}

Great! Now I feel like I'm ready to put and retrieve data in an atproto PDS and start developing an app. There are atproto SDKs, but I wanted to make sure I really got it by doing it all in curl first.

Goodbye Blockchain

In 2018 I started working in blockchain/cryptocurrency stuff at Algorand. They had a clever new system that fixed the gigawatt-waste problem of Bitcoin and was 100x faster, and I figured "I guess blockchain is something people want, and this is good tech, I'll try it".

I spent 4 years there and was always proud of the engineering quality and the culture had a healthy skepticism and distance from the hype around blockchain things.

What I really wanted from the dream of cryptocurrency is to unseat the Visa/MC duopoly and their $.30+3% drain on every transaction. I wanted transactions of any size, censorship resistant, for $0.01 or less. But current climate and laws prevent that.

I'm pretty tired of crypto-bro culture. I don't care about NFTs. Nobody should care about NFTs. "shitcoins" are explicitly value-less and people in the biz call them shitcoins and yet still worry about optimizing their tech to support more shitcoins. This sucks.

Crypto-bros apparently don't care that Twitter is a cesspool and feeding that machine makes the world a worse place. And they don't care that Bitcoin wastes gigawatts per year and must be doomed to fail.

One of the biggest innovations of Bitcoin may be that it created a distributed leaderless Ponzi scheme. Hype it enough and create the next generation of suckers to buy in and buy out your share at a profit.

The crypto markets seem to be entirely hype driven. Worse tech with more hype can beat better tech. It's a big downer when I want to take pride in working on better tech. I no longer care to take a bet on which blockchains will survive to 5 or 10 years from now. I quit.

New job: try to make the world a better place through good social media (and make a buck in the process) at Bluesky Social. I'll mostly be on backend just trying to keep the place running reliably and efficiently, but I'll be doing my part on new features too.

Follow me there at:
https://bsky.app/profile/bolson.bsky.social