@bbs

Bulletin boards on the atmosphere.

Run a BBS from your own account. No server required. Users own their posts, communities migrate freely. Built on atproto.

Features#

Web app and TUI: Browse, post, and manage BBSes from your browser or terminal.
Built on atproto: All data lives in user repos as xyz.atboards records. No central database.
No server needed to run a BBS: A sysop just publishes records to their own PDS.
OAuth login: Sign in with your Bluesky handle or any atproto account.
Discover BBSes: The home screen shows BBSes from across the network.
Flat replies with quotes: Threads with chronological replies. Quote other replies inline.
File attachments: Attach files to threads and replies, stored as blobs in your repo.
Messages: See replies to your threads and quotes of your replies in one place.
Moderation: Sysops can ban users, hide posts, and manage their BBS.
Sysop tools: Create and edit your BBS, manage boards, post news, delete your BBS.
Self-hostable: One Docker command to run the web app.

Quick start#

TUI (recommended)#

Requires Python 3.14+ and uv.

uv tool install atbbs
atbbs                  # launch TUI
atbbs dial aly.codes   # dial a BBS directly
atbbs serve            # start the web server
atbbs --help           # see all options

Or from source:

git clone https://github.com/alyraffauf/atbbs.git
cd atbbs
uv sync
uv run atbbs

Web app (Docker)#

docker run -d -p 8000:8000 -v atbbs-data:/data -e PUBLIC_URL=https://your-domain.com ghcr.io/alyraffauf/atbbs:latest

Or with Docker Compose:

git clone https://github.com/alyraffauf/atbbs.git
cd atbbs
docker compose up -d

Visit http://localhost:8000.

Web app (from source)#

git clone https://github.com/alyraffauf/atbbs.git
cd atbbs
uv sync
just dev

Architecture#

atbbs has no backend database for content. All BBS data lives in atproto repos:

Sysop records: xyz.atboards.site, xyz.atboards.board, xyz.atboards.news
User records: xyz.atboards.thread, xyz.atboards.reply

The web app and TUI query existing network infrastructure:

Slingshot — cached record and identity fetching
Constellation — backlink index for discovering threads and replies
UFOs — BBS discovery feed

Configuration#

On first run, atbbs generates:

secrets.json — app secret key and OAuth client signing key
atbbs.db — SQLite database for OAuth sessions

Web app (Docker): Set ATBBS_DATA_DIR to control where these are stored (default: /data). Set PUBLIC_URL to your domain for OAuth callbacks.

Web app (CLI): Use atbbs serve --data-dir and --public-url to configure. Defaults to the platform data directory and http://{host}:{port}.

TUI: Data is stored in ~/.local/share/atbbs/ (Linux), ~/Library/Application Support/atbbs/ (macOS), or %APPDATA%/atbbs/ (Windows).

License#

AGPL-3.0

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