How to Build More Resilient Local-First Applications With AT Protocol Infrastructure
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Local-first with AT Protocol, novel architecture for distributed apps.
Jake Lazaroff's talk at InfoQ demonstrated how the AT Protocol (atproto) can serve as infrastructure for local-first distributed applications beyond social networking, using personal data servers (PDSs) for user-owned storage, authorization, and sync. He built three experiments—a collaborative text editor with YJS/ProseMirror, a CRDT-based to-do list with last-write-wins registers, and a WebRTC video chat using atproto for ICE candidate signaling—all without the optional App View server. The approach eliminates app-specific backends and single points of failure, though challenges remain with document state fragmentation across records and concurrent write conflicts requiring compare-and-swap retry logic.