ATProto Adds 'Spaces' to Support Private, Non-Public Data
ATProto, the decentralized social protocol that powers Bluesky, has historically treated almost all data as public by default—every post, like, and follow is visible in the open firehose that any developer can index. That design has made it great for building public social apps, but useless for anything requiring privacy, like DMs, drafts, or private groups.
The new "Spaces" extension, released in alpha, aims to fix that gap. It introduces a way to create scoped, non-public data containers within the ATProto ecosystem, letting developers build features that need restricted access without abandoning the protocol's decentralized architecture.
This is still early-stage work, and the alpha status means APIs and guarantees could shift significantly before wider adoption.