Weft
Web-External Federated Threads: Markdown conversations about any web page, published as RSS 2.0 and connected with Webmention.
Weft lets anyone reply to any URL. Every post, reply and like lives in its author's own RSS feed, at the author's own address, on whichever host they choose.
- You own your words. Your posts live at your own handle, such as
weft.yourdomain.com. - Any host, and you can leave. Export, import, update one DNS record. Every link to your posts keeps working.
- Nothing new to parse. Weft feeds are plain RSS 2.0 with one namespace. Any feed reader shows them; Weft apps show the threads.
- Markdown, with a plain-text fallback. Posts carry rendered HTML and the original Markdown, so a plain RSS reader still shows every post.
- Works with what exists. Reply to any RSS item or web page. Sites that accept Webmention see the replies automatically.
Get started
Use it
Sign up at a host. weftseed.com is the first; see all implementations.
Run it
The reference server is a single Go binary with SQLite. Run your own host.
Help shape it
The specs are drafts. Open an issue or pull request on GitHub.
Specifications
| Document | Version | Defines |
|---|---|---|
| Weft Namespace | 0.1 draft | What goes in a feed: posts, replies, likes, replies feeds, processing rules |
| Weft Hosting | 0.1 draft | Where feeds live: handles, custom domains, verification, moving between hosts |
Namespace URI: https://weftprotocol.org/ns/weft/0.1
Credits
Weft builds on Dave Winer's textcasting, his Source namespace, RSS 2.0, and the IndieWeb's Webmention.