Software engineer @bsky.app exploring the Atmosphere with @attie.ai Topics: accessibility, refactoring, AI & career growth Podcast: @overcommitted.dev Website: brittanyellich.com ATProto Site: opensocial.community #pdx #ai #atproto
I don't think it's a coincidence that atproto is taking off at the same time AI is. Well, okay, it kind of is a coincidence. I don't think anybody planned these things to work out at the same time. But it's a lucky alignment that I think is worth savoring: AI is maturing at exactly the moment the atproto ecosystem is getting diverse enough for your data to really mean something. AI is the tool, and your atproto data is the substrate. Quick disclosure before we go further: I'm an engineer at Blue...
I'm starting A Fresh Blog(tm), this time on Pckt. I wanted a dedicated space to post about development, atproto, and community thoughts, and a new space felt like the right place for it. Plus I wanted to get in on standard.site summer while it's still ongoing. Before I get into any of that, though, an introduction. As of a little over a month ago, I work at Bluesky! Before that I was a staff engineer at GitHub, and a long time before that I have a background in public health, which colors a lot ...
Social media was supposed to connect us, but most of it has turned into ads, division, and loneliness. I'm betting on ATProto as a way to fix that, and not just for developers. Whether you're a scientist, journalist, or just someone who wants the internet to feel human again, I think ATProto matters for you too.
You can handle so much more than you think
I spent 2025 going from skeptical to genuinely excited about AI tools. My non-tech friends and family spent 2025 learning to hate them. The AI industry has fumbled this introduction so badly that we've turned a useful set of tools into a cultural flashpoint - but the damage isn't irreversible.
How to go from starting things to finishing things.
2025 was my year of doing ALL the things - speaking at 5+ conferences, starting a podcast, shipping side projects, and somehow not completely burning out. I learned that momentum creates more momentum, perfectionism is overrated, and seeing people in real life again after years of isolation is actually really, really good.
I wanted to add book clubs to my GoodReads-like app (Collective), but ATProto doesn't have a standard way to handle shared group resources yet. So I'm building opensocial.community—a separate service that manages groups independently from any single app. This means the same book club could potentially work across multiple apps (imagine your book club having both a reading list in Collective AND a discussion forum in another app), and groups can migrate between providers if needed. It's probably over-engineered for my use case, but might help other ATProto developers building community features.