Farcaster Devs

Improving Farcaster developer docs

Looking for examples where the docs are:

1) Confusing

2) Incorrect

3) Missing something that would have saved you a bunch of time

i think a free, no sign up, public RPC in the docs would help people playing around with the protocol. is there a reason why farcaster doesn't advertise one?

Not high priority right now. I don't think most new developers are looking to build at the protocol level vs. mini apps.

Also: does Ethereum offer this?

Two options that work well enough:

1. Practical - Neynar has a free tier
2. Maximally decentralized -- Run your own node

No comment on priorities but worth considering why *so many* (like hundreds of projects) are building on atproto but "most new developers" are not building on the farcaster protocol.

I can buy the argument that it won't matter if Farcaster doesn't grow etc etc but it is a thing I think about a lot.

(I agree that miniapps are a very valuable and important differentiator.)

A doodler and computerer. I like permissive/permissionless open source, smart contracts, p2p systems, room-scale VR, and NixOS.

shazow.net

Currently: WhatsABI

Most devs are mini apps because: 

1. The hard thing is acquiring users / distribution. Mini apps make distribution a lot easier

2. Much simpler to build; in 2025 a consumer app that wants to scale has to be mobile first. Building a mobile app and getting it approved in both app stores takes a while. And then you have a huge challenge getting people to download your app.

We started working on this in 2020 hoping that the protocol would have other clients that drove sign ups. That was a naive / incorrect assumption.

Further, we're pretty close to the biggest success for the protocol in terms of 1) client diversity 2) growing the number of users through the Coinbase Wallet integration. So we made sufficient investment in protocol / decentralization / docs to get to that point (I never had to sell them on it, they approached us).

Re:1, there is not a clear cause and effect imo. 

Most devs are miniapp devs, probably because there are rewards, good documentation, more support, more encouragement. For good reasons -I could defend it too. It's also easier. And more attractive, because you can show what you built to your normie friends. 

Truth somewhere in between, but there are good arguments it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

1. Most of our developers are mini app developers. I suspect there are more mini app developers than AT Proto ecosystem devs. We had 400+ attend FarCon and they had <200 attend their conference with 30x the user base.

2. IIRC, AT Proto doesn’t have any venture-backed projects (beyond the core team). I think it’s a very different developer ecosystem. More FOSS, less startup-focused. Funding and making money will be much harder on that network.

Most new developers are building in AI and not on decentralized social networks.