bluesky playbook

✍️ social-copy
← Back to social-copy 📄 Raw Markdown

Bluesky (AT Protocol) Developer Copy Playbook #

Comprehensive guide for writing developer, open-source, and technical posts on Bluesky (AT Protocol).

1. Platform Dynamics & Culture #

Core Cultural Norms #

  • Anti-Corporate & Anti-Hype: Corporate jargon, breathless buzzwords, and engagement-bait tactics ("Thoughts?", "Agree?") are actively muted. Write with peer-level engineering candor.
  • Reverse-Chronological Following Feed: Posts appear directly without algorithmic demotion or manipulation.
  • Zero Link Suppression: Bluesky does not penalize external links or link cards. Direct URLs and rich Open Graph preview cards thrive directly in the main post.
  • Custom Feeds: 40,000+ custom feeds query the AT Protocol firehose. Natural technical keywords (e.g. Postgres, Golang, eBPF, Kubernetes) automatically route your post into relevant developer feeds.
  • Domain Verification: Using a custom domain handle (e.g., @handle.dev or @project.org) is the primary trust badge.

2. Platform Constraints & Formatting #

Parameter Limit / Specification Best Practice
Post Length 300 graphemes (visual characters) Keep posts punchy (sweet spot: 200–270 chars).
Outbound URLs Count grapheme-by-grapheme Let the rich Open Graph link card do the work, or use clean URLs.
Alt Text ([ALT]) Up to 2,000 characters per image Culturally mandatory. Missing alt text triggers mutes. Describe code logic and diagrams clearly.
Media Attachments Up to 4 images or 1 video (up to 60s) Attach terminal GIFs, benchmarks, or architecture diagrams.
Hashtags Clickable / searchable Use 0 to 1 specific hashtag max (e.g., #Golang). Never stuff hashtags.

3. High-Performing Post Frameworks #

Framework A: Open Source Launch / Tool Announcement #

text 
We built [ToolName] because parsing 10GB JSON dumps in Node was eating 4GB of RAM.

[ToolName] uses SIMD streaming in Go to process files in 120ms with zero allocations.

MIT licensed, zero dependencies.

🔗 github.com/org/toolname
text 
Why did our Postgres connection pool choke at 5,000 req/s despite 64-core instances?

It wasn't lock contention or CPU exhaustion—it was transaction wraparound autovacuum starving ephemeral worker queries.

Here is how we debugged and fixed it:

[Direct Link to Blog Post / Docs]

Framework C: Multi-Post Architecture Breakdown (3–4 Posts) #

  • Post 1 (Hook + Outcome): The bottleneck solved and unexpected discovery.
  • Post 2 (Mechanism): Concrete algorithmic or architectural approach.
  • Post 3 (Visual Proof): Benchmark chart or diagram with descriptive [ALT] text.
  • Post 4 (Resources): Direct links to repository, paper, or documentation.

4. Bluesky Do's & Don'ts #

❌ Don'ts #

  • No algorithmic evasions: Never say "Link in bio" or "Link in first reply". Put the link directly in the post.
  • No engagement bait: Never use "Thoughts?", "Agree?", or "Bookmark this!".
  • No images without Alt Text: Always write detailed descriptions of code and charts.
  • No PR fluff: Avoid "We are super thrilled to announce...".

✅ Do's #

  • Put links directly in the post with clean Open Graph previews.
  • Write 1–2 sentence descriptions explaining the engineering mechanism.
  • Tag and credit open-source contributors transparently.