Today marks exactly one year since Smoke Signal launched. On July 14th, 2024, it started with a simple premise: create an event and RSVP management platform built on the principles of data portability, user ownership, algorithmic choice, and federation through ATProtocol.

Looking back at that "Hello World" post, it's incredible to see how far we've come. This past year has been transformative, not just for Smoke Signal as an application, but for how we understand and leverage ATProtocol:

Technical Evolution

We've deepened our expertise in authentication and identity management, leading to the creation of the open source AIP project—an evolved fork of Smoke Signal's original authentication code that now benefits the entire developer community.

Community Ownership

We established Lexicon Community, a group that has taken ownership of the event and RSVP lexicon used by Smoke Signal. This commitment ensures users have a credible exit strategy—because your data should always be yours.

Real-World Badge Implementation

Our early experiments with badges have evolved from concept to production. Working with platforms like atproto.camp and badge.blue, we've developed practical services including gnosco.smokesignal.events and badges.smokesignal.events.

Building Together

We've had the privilege of speaking at ATmosphere conf and developer meetups, collaborating with countless developers, leading community initiatives, and forging friendships that extend far beyond code. This community is what makes building on ATProtocol truly special.

Open Source Commitment

Smoke Signal is now fully open source under the MIT license. We're putting significant attention and energy into making it easy to deploy in both low-resource environments and large-scale production deployments. You can find the source code at tangled.sh/@smokesignal.events/smokesignal.

Much of Smoke Signal's functionality has been extracted into the atproto-* crates—building blocks for ATProtocol applications that are also open source under the MIT license. Check them out at tangled.sh/@smokesignal.events/atproto-identity-rs.

We've also invested heavily in developer tooling and documentation. The localdev repository contains everything you need to spin up a PLC directory and PDS on a tailscale network for individual or team development of ATProtocol applications and AppViews.

Evolving Documentation and Support

One thing that became very apparent this year is that Smoke Signal is a growing and evolving product, and the way users search for and get help needs to match that dynamism. We've sunset our old docs subdomain and replaced it with discourse.smokesignal.events.

Switching from a static site to Discourse makes it easier for the community to share feedback and be involved in the solution-making process. This change reflects our commitment to building with our users, not just for them.

Looking Ahead: Year Two

The next year promises even more exciting developments:

Immediate Priorities

Event Feeds and Locations top our list. These features will fundamentally enhance how users discover and engage with events in their communities. Stay tuned for updates in the coming weeks.

Recognition and Support

To celebrate our anniversary, we're awarding badges to everyone who participated in our recent bug-bash and used Smoke Signal during this anniversary week. We'll also be introducing badges for individuals and organizations that sponsor Smoke Signal's development and infrastructure.

Technical Innovations

• The Smoke Signal remote MCP is approaching a stable release candidate for public preview
• Discovery emerges as a major theme, encompassing both feed improvements and community/interest discovery features
• Active research into RSVP attestation, payments integration, and cross-AppView interconnected features

Join Us in Building

Smoke Signal represents more than just an events platform—it's a commitment to a kinder, more open web where users control their data and communities thrive on their own terms.

Ready to be part of this movement? Here are some resources to get you started:

• Event Creation Guide - Learn how to create and manage events on Smoke Signal
• Account Registration Guide - Get started with your Smoke Signal account
• Event Migration Guide - Move your existing events to Smoke Signal
• Relaunch Discussion - Join the conversation about Smoke Signal's future

Log into Smoke Signal, create events for your community, and help us demonstrate that there's a better way to build social applications.

Here's to another year of building together. 🚀

Thank you to everyone who has contributed code, filed issues, created events, sent RSVPs, and believed in the vision of a more open web. This is just the beginning.