Continuing the discussion from [Proposal] Shared private Data for social posting:
This is one of those terms that comes up a lot, but we are using it with slightly different definitions in mind.
@bmann.ca what’s your definition of a ‘sidecar’ in an atproto context? Curious to see if that lines up with how @nonbinary.computer & @evelyn.northsky.team and others conceptualize it.
A Sidecar Record is when you share a record ID with more information.
@snarfed.org and others have written about this extensively.
Yes! Key early precedent and writeup: Lexicons, Pinned Posts, and Interoperability | Bluesky
Here’s @bnewbold.net talking about Tangled’s git integration with atproto as a “sidecar service”:
This is why I originally titled this topic merely “what is a sidecar?” because outside the specific context of sidecar records I’ve understood it to be a general term for ‘one protocol/system linked up with another’, and it has confused me sometimes when I’ve used the sidecar metaphor in that manner and then been told “that’s not what a sidecar is”.
I don’t mind trying to converge on a more narrow definition of the sidecar though, I’m merely pointing out that this convergence remains tenuous.
Yeah this is a good point. wafrn is another example, they run the reference PDS as a “sidecar [service]” alongside their ActivityPub server. The term definitely overlaps between sidecar records and sidecar services. Maybe we’d ideally have fully separate terms, but language, amirite? So it goes. 