If you know me, you know I keep circling back to two things: writing on the open web, and actually owning what I put out there. SkyPress is my latest attempt to do both at once, and today I'm opening it up in alpha over at SkyPress.blog.
The short version is that SkyPress is a long-form writing editor for the AT Protocol, the open network behind Bluesky. You sign in with the Bluesky identity you already have, so there's no new account to create, and then you write in a real block editor and publish. If you've ever used the WordPress block editor, it'll feel familiar; it's the Gutenberg editor used entirely on its own, with no WordPress behind it.
Your words live on your server, not mine
When you publish, your article doesn't get saved into SkyPress at all. It gets written to your own PDS, the same place your Bluesky posts already live. SkyPress has no database, and it doesn't keep a copy of your posts, or the images you upload. As far as your content goes, there's simply nothing of yours on my side to lose or to leak.
That was really the whole goal. I wanted to experiment with ATProto and build something useful that stores none of your data, an app that's just the studio you write in, plus a renderer that reads your work back out of your PDS whenever someone visits. It resolves your handle, finds your server, fetches the record, and renders it, with no copy sitting in the middle.
What you can do today
It's early, but there's a real loop here already:
- Write rich articles with a calm, focused set of blocks like headings, images, galleries, quotes, lists, code, and embeds. It's not a page builder, just a place to write.
- Group your writing into one or more publications, each with its own name, logo, and look. There are eight "sky phase" themes to pick from, running all the way from sunrise to midnight.
- Read it all back on light, fast public pages at
skypress.blog/@yourhandle, with proper link previews and a full-content RSS feed for each publication. - Edit or unpublish whenever you like, and it all flows back to your PDS.
Please, go run your own PDS
SkyPress works great with the default Bluesky server, but the whole point of this network is that you don't have to stay there. There is a growing list of PDS you can join (check this directory). Better yet, and if you feel comfortable doing so, you can run your own PDS, point your identity at it, and SkyPress will read and write to it just the same. I'd love for this to be one more small nudge toward more people doing exactly that. The studio is mine to build, but the server really should be yours.
And if you'd rather run the studio too, that's fair game. SkyPress is open source under the GPL, and the README is written as a self-hosting guide, so you can stand up your own instance at your own domain and go.
A playground
SkyPress is an experiment first, a playground I'm building in the open so I can poke at what long-form writing on the AT Protocol could feel like. It's under development and I'm sure you'll find rough edges I haven't even hit yet. I'm not promising polish here; I'm just sharing something I'm excited about while it's still wet paint.
So come kick the tires. Sign in, write something, and tell me what feels wrong. I'd really love to hear what you think, and if you spot something broken, that's not a bug report so much as me getting exactly the feedback I was hoping for :)
Photo by Cara Denison from Pexels