Adam Wiggins
Software developer and entrepreneur; co-founder of Heroku, author of The Twelve-Factor App, and a researcher at Ink & Switch.
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Latest Bluesky
What they believe
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Local-first technologies like CRDTs and open protocols can give nations more control over their critical software infrastructure.
Technologies from our community - CRDTs, sync engines, universal version control, and good old-fashioned open protocols and file formats - can give a nation more independence and control over its own critical software infrastructure.
adamwiggins.comSaid 31 Jul 2026This on korrents
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A user's own behavior over time is a more reliable signal of what they want to see than who they explicitly follow.
A user's behavior, especially as it changes over time, is a better signal for what the user wants to see.
adamwiggins.comSaid 2 Jun 2026This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These 2: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
Feed
As its own page →Hiding
16 October
5 October
21 September
16 September
31 August
30 August
27 August
23 August
17 August
31 July
From one piece Politics and emotion at Local-First Conf 2 beliefs · adamwiggins.com
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korrents.com
Mainstream software will largely continue to be created by big tech companies, and that is acceptable.Their words
We acknowledge that mainstream software will largely be the creation of big tech companies, and that's ok.
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Their words
Technologies from our community - CRDTs, sync engines, universal version control, and good old-fashioned open protocols and file formats - can give a nation more independence and control over its own critical software infrastructure.
17 July
4 June
2 June
From one piece A Bluesky feed for one 2 beliefs · adamwiggins.com
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korrents.com
Explicit signals like follows and subscriptions are as brittle and hard to maintain as manually tuned filter rules.Their words
Following and subscribing are heavyweight signals, and thus suffer from the same problem of manually tuning rules and filters.
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korrents.com
A user's own behavior over time is a more reliable signal of what they want to see than who they explicitly follow.Their words
A user's behavior, especially as it changes over time, is a better signal for what the user wants to see.
23 April
13 April
8 April
2 April
25 March
26 February
12 February
10 February
From one piece Firehose authentic use 2 beliefs · adamwiggins.com
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Their words
building a third-party client to read and route messages is a gray area in their terms of service, and perhaps only partially supported in their API surfaces.
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Their words
The "homework problem" described above might be much worse in practice for end users who aren't motivated to invest in their email triage systems, even if it will save them time in the medium term.
30 January
23 January
From one piece Email triage with an embedding-based classifier 3 beliefs · adamwiggins.com
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korrents.com
A personalized classifier needs several hundred labeled examples before its predictions become reliable.Their words
Predictions were poor until I got to over 250 samples in the training set.
Email triage with an embedding-based classifieradamwiggins.com
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korrents.com
Open-source text embedding models run well enough on consumer hardware to be practical for real tasks.Their words
Local / open text embedding models work fine on consumer hardware.
Email triage with an embedding-based classifieradamwiggins.com
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Their words
It's a good example of how user preferences are much more subtle than broad heuristics like "all receipts go to FYI."
Email triage with an embedding-based classifieradamwiggins.com
13 January
From one piece Personal information firehose 2 beliefs · adamwiggins.com
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Their words
Explicit filtering rules (e.g. rules features in many email clients): mostly a failure. It's too much work to set up and then manage these, especially since a given person's preferences will change over time.
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korrents.com
Social media recommendation algorithms are only partially designed to serve the people using them.Their words
The weak point of social media algorithms for end users is that they are only partially designed to serve us.
5 January
4 September 2025
From one piece Why sync 2 beliefs · adamwiggins.com
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korrents.com
Local-first sync architectures are a natural fit for AI agents, since both are inherently multiplayer.Their words
Agentic and sync are natural complements because local-first is multiplayer by default, and agents are another sort of "player" in addition to human collaborators.
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Their words
The baseline of user expectation quality and craft keeps rising.
17 February 2024
From one piece Muse retrospective 2 beliefs · adamwiggins.com
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Their words
After that, I think you have to be left with software that serves a deep and hard-to-replace purpose in people's lives.
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korrents.com
Prosumer software needs tens or hundreds of thousands of users for its development costs to be sustainable.Their words
You need tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, to make the cost of development sustainable.
22 November 2020
15 November 2020
8 November 2020
25 October 2020
18 October 2020
10 October 2020
29 September 2020
Nothing matches.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 18 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
Local-first technologies like CRDTs and open protocols can give nations more control over their critical software infrastructure.
Technologies from our community - CRDTs, sync engines, universal version control, and good old-fashioned open protocols and file formats - can give a nation more independence and control over its own critical software infrastructure.
Politics and emotion at Local-First Conf Said 31 Jul 2026
Mainstream software will largely continue to be created by big tech companies, and that is acceptable.
We acknowledge that mainstream software will largely be the creation of big tech companies, and that's ok.
Politics and emotion at Local-First Conf Said 31 Jul 2026
A user's own behavior over time is a more reliable signal of what they want to see than who they explicitly follow.
A user's behavior, especially as it changes over time, is a better signal for what the user wants to see.
A Bluesky feed for one Said 2 Jun 2026
Show 15 more
Explicit signals like follows and subscriptions are as brittle and hard to maintain as manually tuned filter rules.
Following and subscribing are heavyweight signals, and thus suffer from the same problem of manually tuning rules and filters.
A Bluesky feed for one Said 2 Jun 2026
People who lack intrinsic motivation to invest time upfront in a new tool often won't, even if it would save them time later
The "homework problem" described above might be much worse in practice for end users who aren't motivated to invest in their email triage systems, even if it will save them time in the medium term.
Firehose authentic use Said 10 Feb 2026
Building third-party clients for messaging platforms is a legal gray area and often only partially supported by their APIs
building a third-party client to read and route messages is a gray area in their terms of service, and perhaps only partially supported in their API surfaces.
Firehose authentic use Said 10 Feb 2026
What a message-recipient considers important is too idiosyncratic to be captured by generic heuristics like "all receipts go to FYI."
It's a good example of how user preferences are much more subtle than broad heuristics like "all receipts go to FYI."
Email triage with an embedding-based classifier Said 23 Jan 2026
Open-source text embedding models run well enough on consumer hardware to be practical for real tasks.
Local / open text embedding models work fine on consumer hardware.
Email triage with an embedding-based classifier Said 23 Jan 2026
A personalized classifier needs several hundred labeled examples before its predictions become reliable.
Predictions were poor until I got to over 250 samples in the training set.
Email triage with an embedding-based classifier Said 23 Jan 2026
Social media recommendation algorithms are only partially designed to serve the people using them.
The weak point of social media algorithms for end users is that they are only partially designed to serve us.
Personal information firehose Said 13 Jan 2026
Manually configured filtering rules mostly fail because a person's preferences change over time and the rules require ongoing upkeep.
Explicit filtering rules (e.g. rules features in many email clients): mostly a failure. It's too much work to set up and then manage these, especially since a given person's preferences will change over time.
Personal information firehose Said 13 Jan 2026
User expectations for software quality and craft keep rising over time.
The baseline of user expectation quality and craft keeps rising.
Why sync Said 4 Sept 2025
Local-first sync architectures are a natural fit for AI agents, since both are inherently multiplayer.
Agentic and sync are natural complements because local-first is multiplayer by default, and agents are another sort of "player" in addition to human collaborators.
Why sync Said 4 Sept 2025
Prosumer software needs tens or hundreds of thousands of users for its development costs to be sustainable.
You need tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, to make the cost of development sustainable.
Muse retrospective Said 17 Feb 2024
New productivity software rides community excitement for a few years, after which it must serve a deep, hard-to-replace need to survive.
After that, I think you have to be left with software that serves a deep and hard-to-replace purpose in people's lives.
Muse retrospective Said 17 Feb 2024
A business succeeds through a small number of highly effective distribution channels, not many mediocre ones.
any given business will find a small number of highly-effective channels, and the rest don't matter.
Muse retrospective Said 17 Feb 2024
The Information Age could be a species-level shift comparable to the Industrial Revolution
I find it plausible that the Information Age will be a species-level shift on par with the Industrial Revolution.
making computers better Said 29 Sept 2020
The tech industry's economic and intellectual energy is directed away from human flourishing rather than toward it
The economic and intellectual horsepower in Silicon Valley and the wider tech world seems to be pointed away from these goals.
making computers better Said 29 Sept 2020
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.
Recommends rcmnd
rcmnd What they recommend 9 things — each backed by an exact quote.
Compiled by rcmnd.app, not by them: the quotes are theirs, and each links to the post it was copied from.
Recent
Uses iTerm2
Pretty standard setup: a 13" MacBook Pro. I spend almost all my time in iTerm 2 and Chrome.
usesthis.com 19 Aug 2014
Loved GoodReads
I love reading, so I have to mention Pocket (short form) and Kindle (the app, not the hardware) for long-form. Kindle plus GoodReads have amped up my reading in a huge way.
usesthis.com 19 Aug 2014
Uses Logic Pro
For creating music, Logic Pro is my main tool.
usesthis.com 19 Aug 2014
Show 6 more
Loved Anki
Right now I'm trying to learn a new spoken language, so Anki deserves a mention. This is a great flashcard authoring tool that syncs across platforms.
usesthis.com 19 Aug 2014
Loved Audacity
Audacity can't be beat for waveform editing despite not looking very pretty.
usesthis.com 19 Aug 2014
Liked Inkscape
For vector illustrations, like the cover of this album, I find Inkscape to be far more useable than Adobe Illustrator.
usesthis.com 19 Aug 2014
Liked Pixelmator
These days I use Pixelmator for simple image editing because it feels so good on the Mac.
usesthis.com 19 Aug 2014
Uses Audio-Technica QuietPoint
Audio-Technica QuietPoint noise-canceling headphones plus generated white noise via A Soft Murmur block out distraction while working.
usesthis.com 19 Aug 2014
Uses Alfred
I keep the Dock hidden and launch applications exclusively with Alfred.
usesthis.com 19 Aug 2014
Where they publish
Site adamwiggins.com Personal site and essays.
Recent
- Politics and emotion at Local-First Conf 31 Jul 2026 My reflections on Local-First Conf 2026. I was surprised by the angles of geopolitics, and charged emotion in response to our changing industry.
- A Bluesky feed for one 2 Jun 2026 I built a custom feed for Bluesky that trains a model on my past interactions. Here's what I learned about RecSys and social media feeds generally.
- Firehose authentic use 10 Feb 2026 A prototype of email triage via a custom-trained model. This is a report of the first two weeks of real-world use.
Show 12 more
- Email triage with an embedding-based classifier 23 Jan 2026 I built a machine learning pipeline for email triage. Includes a hand-labeled golden set, training the model in the browser, and evals. Plus options for local vs cloud embeddings.
- Personal information firehose 13 Jan 2026 My new research project asks whether a personal algorithm, inspired by social media, can help us filter our email, group chats, and other personal correspondence.
- Why sync 4 Sept 2025 Web developers are discovering the joys of sync, including next-frame UIs, multiplayer by default, and a simplified stack.
- Muse retrospective 17 Feb 2024 The inside story of four years building Muse, a canvas-based thinking tool for iPad and Mac.
- together, we can make things better 22 Nov 2020 Let’s work together to change our industry conversation, direct our individual careers, and develop new institutions for making computers better.
- how we create and deliver software 15 Nov 2020 Let’s make software development fast, fun, and ceremony-free.
- how we pay for software 8 Nov 2020 I want to see us diversify payment models beyond ad-supported and B2B SaaS in order to enable more types of software.
- how we manage our attention 25 Oct 2020 In a hyperconnected age, I want software to help us find harmony between staying connected and staying focused.
- how we interact with our tools 18 Oct 2020 Core OS interactions like copy-paste, multitasks, and multitouch have stagnated. Maybe we lack the right institutions for innovation.
- how we store and collaborate on our work 10 Oct 2020 Files give us agency, the web gives us collaboration, mobile gives us direct manipulation. I want all three together.
- how we identify ourselves 29 Sept 2020 We identify ourselves to computers hundreds of times a day, but it’s a mess. I want digital identity that is easy to use, private, and secure.
- making computers better 29 Sept 2020 We live in a computer-embroidered reality. Here are six ways to improve computing in service of human prosperity.
Link verified 5 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
x.com @_adamwiggins_ His X account.
Recent
- Also a big fan of Flighty, but feels like a perfect example why data ownership and local-first are important to me. He just wanted to correlate his personal flights with his health data and publish the results! 27 Aug 2026
- Really happy with the breadth of topics this year! Local models, game development, homelab setups, open social protocols... plus the classics like malleable software, sync, and tools for thought. This community keeps me optimistic about user empowerment in computing ❤️ 4 Jun 2026
- I wrote a custom Bluesky feed! It's a classifier trained my past likes. As a bonus, I got to learn more about recommender systems ("RecSys"). 2 Jun 2026 adamwiggins.com
Show 15 more
- It's astonishing how much time in my day I spend typing in two-factor codes, picking the right Google account, and otherwise trying to convince the computer that I am who I say I am. I believe we can do better. Would love to see a talk submission if you're working on this. 23 Apr 2026
- The role local-first can play in the software industry: encourage us all to think longer-term. 13 Apr 2026
- “Good protocol design requires balancing the tensions of ideology and practicality.” Fantastic read on federation, p2p, and software people actually want to use: 8 Apr 2026 pfrazee.com
- High time we got Steve onstage for Local-First Conf! 2 Apr 2026
- Been using Zero for a mid-sized personal app, syncing to both a React web front end and an Expo iOS app. Fast, easy to use, reliable. Recommended. 25 Mar 2026
- This is our third time out with Local-First Conf! In past years we've thoroughly explored some core topics like sync engines and CRDTs. In 2026, we're broadening into areas like identity, e2ee, malleable software, and open-weight models. 26 Feb 2026
- Two weeks of real-world use on Firehose, my email triage prototype. • 572 emails automatically labeled • 77% coverage (confident labels) • 98.2% accuracy on confident ✨ 12 Feb 2026
- Local-First Conf is back in 2026 for a third installment. This year we'll double down on what's worked in the past... but do a few things differently. 30 Jan 2026
- 10m documentary film on the local-first software movement! 30 Jan 2026
- Can an algorithm learn your life priorities when sorting email? In the first phase of my “personal information firehose” reseach, I trained an embedding-based classifier: 23 Jan 2026 adamwiggins.com
- We're all drinking from an information firehose, because sending messages via computer is frictionless. But I believe we should be able to apply social media-style algorithms to help! My new research project: 13 Jan 2026 adamwiggins.com
- After six years working on commercial products, happy to say I’m returning to the research world. Today I start as a Researcher-in-Residence at @inkandswitch 5 Jan 2026
- So much good stuff happening at @inkandswitch these days! 28 Nov 2025 inkandswitch.com
- Preview of my @sync_conf talk Just five days away now, getting excited! 7 Nov 2025
- Getting excited for the conf, just 2.5 weeks away The density of top-notch developers speaking (and attending) is off the charts! 25 Oct 2025
Link verified 5 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
Bluesky adamwiggins.com His Bluesky account, verified by his own domain.
Recent
- Watching the KDE documentary by @cultrepo.bsky.social 16 Oct 2026 youtube.com
- As someone whose life spans multiple timezones, love this! 16 Oct 2026
- Good thread on sandboxing as a critical primitive that (outside of maybe web browsers) we could do better on. 5 Oct 2026
Show 8 more
- I'm in the market for a "team brain" for a small company (<10 people). Wishes: - Ability to dump in PDFs, spreadsheets, text files, URLs, etc - Fast, accurate, and up-to-date search to answer questions like "where's the latest employment contract template?" 21 Sept 2026
- Looking forward to this one 16 Sept 2026
- Interesting thread about place names on Google Maps and international law 31 Aug 2026
- Screenshot diffing, feedback inboxes, PWAs, and of course local-first sync layer with self-hosted backend. Matches up pretty well with my approach on personal apps thus far into the LLM coding age. Curious to hear from others. 30 Aug 2026
- Enjoying the Everyday Abundance podcast: abundance.institute/EverydayAbun... Latest episode about the social technologies that makes car travel possible (signs, road rules, fuel standards, etc) was a great one. 23 Aug 2026
- I’ll be there. 17 Aug 2026
- Biggest and best @localfirstconf.com yet, IMO! Surprising emergent themes this year: geopolitics and EU digital sovereignty, and strong conflicting emotions on LLM-assisted coding. More: 31 Jul 2026 adamwiggins.com
- Delighted by the simplicity of @tldraw.com offline's initial screen 17 Jul 2026
Link verified 5 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
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