For decades, Git hosting platforms have operated under centralized models, leaving developers vulnerable to corporate policy shifts and platform risk. Enter Tangled—a decentralized alternative built on the ATProtocol (the foundation of Bluesky) that’s reimagining social coding with ownership, self-governance, and infrastructure control at its core.

The Decentralization Difference

Tangled isn't just another Git host—it’s a protocol-native ecosystem where developers retain full ownership of their code. Unlike traditional platforms, repositories live on user-controlled "knots": lightweight, self-hosted servers handling Git operations.


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Fine-grained RBAC governs access, while SSH ensures secure pushes/pulls. This architecture directly answers growing concerns about centralized platform risk and intellectual property control.

Reinventing Collaboration

Beyond infrastructure, Tangled introduces novel workflows:
- Round-Based Pull Requests: An iterative review model with inter-diffing between revisions, replacing linear comment threads with contextual progress tracking.


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- Stacked PRs: Leveraging Jujutsu's change IDs for atomic commits
- Drive-By Contributions: Directly paste git diff or git format-patch outputs for frictionless micro-contributions

Decentralized CI with Spindles

CI/CD escapes walled gardens via "spindles"—lightweight, self-hosted runners executing pipelines.


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Native Nix support ensures reproducible builds, while extensible backends accommodate diverse environments. This eliminates vendor lock-in while providing the automation modern teams require.

An Ecosystem in Motion

The platform’s public timeline reveals organic traction: repositories like @slices.network/slices (Rust ATProto services) and @tangled.org/core (Go monorepo) show over 400 stars and active collaboration.


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Early projects range from music discovery platforms (@rocksky.app/rocksky) to CLI tools (@vitorpy.com/tangled-cli), signaling a developer community embracing decentralized primitives.

As monolithic platforms face scrutiny over AI training data policies and enshittification, Tangled’s open, user-owned model offers a compelling alternative. Its ATProto foundation enables federation and composability absent in legacy systems—potentially igniting a new era where social coding means actual ownership, not just collaboration.

Source: Tangled.org