@thatzacdavis yes, that's what I'd intended as the #dotnet part, the backend.

Regarding the front-end, I'd want to chat with others about that. I know some will push blazor, which is viable. I'm a fan of vue, but wouldn't insist on anything specific.

I was thinking the first step is #ActivityPub with a rudimentary front-end at most while we create the backend.

@brendoneus @thatzacdavis Creating an ActivityPub server is definitely the first step. That's the federation and discovery part, the database etc.

Then adding an API on top that conforms to the Mastodon API surface area, then potentially more specific.

Remember that there's a plethora of Mastodon apps, so I think the 3 things can be very effectively decoupled.

@brendoneus @thatzacdavis The ActivityPub server is something I think would be generally useful though.

Being able to have [email protected] would be cool to have it publish via ActivityPub etc. without a full instance. Have it sync comments for blogs, that kind of thing.

@Martindotnet @thatzacdavis Yeah, the ActivityPub with a minimal front-end is basically the "Hello World" of the Fediverse, so that's gotta be first.

I'm also thinking that we separate things, so that someone could take pieces of it and use them without needing the whole application.

@brendoneus @thatzacdavis Honestly, I'm not even thinking about the minimal front-end.

I'm looking at SDKs that provide the ActivityPub endpoints, and interfaces for repositories.

Those could be reused in something that can provide Client Facing UI/APIs. So a full separation at a library level.

@Martindotnet @thatzacdavis Exactly!

The minimal front-end is the "Hello World" part of it to confirm that your ActivityPub endpoints, etc. are working.

I think whatever we build should be as separate parts that we *can* use together, but don't *require* each other to function.