John Whiteside

Hello! My name is John, I'm a Software Engineer from Michigan

I’ve been working in the industry as a Software Engineer for over a decade, with a primary focus on Front-End Engineering. Most of my experience has been in the ad tech space. Throughout my career, I’ve worked extensively with React and have recently been focusing on Next.js. I’m also deeply interested in decentralized technologies. I’ve been exploring social web protocols such as ActivityPub, the AT Protocol, and Nostr. Outside of development, I’m an avid dart player and also play guitar.

Hello! My name is John, I'm a Software Engineer from Michigan

AT Explore MCP is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that acts as a bridge between AI assistants (like Claude) and the decentralized social web. It empowers LLMs to directly query and explore the AT Protocol (Bluesky) and ActivityPub (Mastodon, Pixelfed) ecosystems.

AT Explore is a data browser for the AT Protocol, the decentralized social standard behind Bluesky. It lets you search for users, view profiles, explore posts, and browse feeds. I started this project to deepen my understanding of the protocol and have been steadily adding new features.

Year in Review: Getting Back to Building

12/31/2025

Looking back on a year of getting back to building, learning faster with AI, and making some overdue personal changes.

Running my site on the ATmosphere

12/24/2025

Rethinking my website’s content architecture with the AT Protocol.

Expanding Lexicons and Hardening AT Explore

10/21/2025

Catching up on the last couple of weeks of work: new Lexicon support for Leaflet, stability improvements, some indexing experiments, and thoughts on opening up an API.

Leaflet Launch, ActivityPub Progress, and Some Mario Galaxy!

10/6/2025

This week I launched Leaflet support on AT Explore, made solid progress on ActivityPub profiles, and started expanding Lexicon support for publishers. Also took a quick detour into the new Mario Galaxy remaster on Switch 2.

Year in Review: Getting Back to Building

12/31/2025

Looking back on a year of getting back to building, learning faster with AI, and making some overdue personal changes.

Running my site on the ATmosphere

12/24/2025

Rethinking my website’s content architecture with the AT Protocol.

Expanding Lexicons and Hardening AT Explore

10/21/2025

Catching up on the last couple of weeks of work: new Lexicon support for Leaflet, stability improvements, some indexing experiments, and thoughts on opening up an API.

Leaflet Launch, ActivityPub Progress, and Some Mario Galaxy!

10/6/2025

Hello! My name is John, I'm a Software Engineer from Michigan

Hello! My name is John, I'm a Software Engineer from Michigan

Year in Review: Getting Back to Building

Running my site on the ATmosphere

Expanding Lexicons and Hardening AT Explore

Leaflet Launch, ActivityPub Progress, and Some Mario Galaxy!

Year in Review: Getting Back to Building

Running my site on the ATmosphere

Expanding Lexicons and Hardening AT Explore

Leaflet Launch, ActivityPub Progress, and Some Mario Galaxy!

Feeds

PizzaSky 🍕

Pure Michigan

Mitten Sports

The Mitten