Monorepo for Tangled
tangled.org
1---
2atroot: true
3template:
4slug: federation
5title: We need a federation of forges
6subtitle: Git is decentralized, but what of the rest?
7image: https://assets.tangled.network/blog/federation/Light-OG.png
8date: 2026-04-29
9authors:
10 - name: Akshay
11 email: akshay@tangled.org
12 handle: oppi.li
13---
14
15<picture>
16 <source media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)" srcset="https://assets.tangled.network/blog/federation/Dark.png">
17 <img class="h-auto max-w-full" src="https://assets.tangled.network/blog/federation/Light.png">
18</picture>
19
20GitHub seems to be crumbling the past couple of weeks.
21Whatever the reason, ultimately its not great for 90% of the
22world's OSS to depend on one provider. Centralized systems
23always crumble; it's the emails, gits, and IRCs that stand
24the test of time. Tangled aims to fit in this space, allow
25me to explain.
26
27Code collaboration has always made use of two protocols, one
28for code transfer and one for communication:
29
30- It began with the email flow: git (code transfer) + email
31 (comms)
32- Then there was GitHub: git (code transfer) + GitHub the
33 website (comms)
34- There is the ForgeFed project: git (code transfer) +
35 [maybe
36 ActivityPub](https://forgefed.org/blog/actor-programming/)
37 (comms)
38- We are building Tangled: git (code transfer) + [AT
39 Protocol](https://atproto.com/) (comms)
40
41Tangled federates events among git servers (called "knots").
42You can collaborate on repositories on any server and you
43can fork across servers. You can even push to a repository
44on your own server, and open a pull-request on a repo hosted
45on a completely different server. In a lot of ways, this is
46quite like hosting your own cgit instance, and sending out
47patches via email.
48
49Tangled uses AT to facilitate the Authenticated Transfer of
50events surrounding code: like issues and pull-requests, and
51it also enables a few social bits: a timeline of events,
52follows, stars (and vouches very soon). AT is used to share
53collaborator invites and ssh pubkeys, but the rest is just
54good ol' git.
55
56OSS needs to break free from monocultures like GitHub, but
57code collaboration should still be fun and social.