Bluesky introduces Jetstream, a JSON alternative to the firehose

What changed

On October 16, 2024 the AT Protocol team introduced Jetstream, an open source Go service that streams events as JSON with less bandwidth and lets subscribers filter by collection (NSID) or repo (DID). It is not formally part of the protocol and its long-term stability is less certain than the firehose.

What it means

Bots, feeds and small tools can read network events as simple JSON, with filtering by collection or account.

Who is affected

Developers building bots, labelers, prototypes and feeds on the AT Protocol.

What to do

Consider Jetstream for lightweight consumers. Do not use it where you need signed, verifiable data such as mirroring, archives or moderation, because events carry no signatures.