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  "description": "feat: announce FOSSE developer preview and Reclaim theme directory work",
  "path": "/posts/fosse-reclaim-the-web-block-theme/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-29T00:00:00.000Z",
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  "textContent": "FOSSE is available as a developer preview 🎉. FOSSE is a WordPress plugin for publishing from your site to the open social web, with ActivityPub and AT Protocol in one install, one setup wizard, and one admin surface.\n\nThat means a WordPress site can publish to places like Mastodon and Bluesky without making the site owner care which protocol owns which setting. The post starts on your site, and FOSSE handles the connection work around it.\n\nI already wrote about the bigger \"reclaim the web\" idea and some of the dev-process lessons. I'll spare you the third version of that post :) This one is more concrete. FOSSE is public enough to try, and the site we built to explain it is turning into its own WordPress theme.\n\nFOSSE as a developer preview\n\nA few weeks ago, Kraft and I started working on FOSSE as part of Radical Speed Month (an internal company initiative for building and shipping quickly). The short version is that FOSSE sits on top of the existing WordPress ActivityPub and Atmosphere work and gives site owners one place to set things up.\n\nThe first public version focuses mostly on setup and status. A fresh activation gives you a guided path for connecting WordPress to ActivityPub and Bluesky, a unified settings screen, a status page for provider health, and a way to use your site's domain as a Bluesky handle from inside wp-admin. On the AT Protocol side, this preview is mostly about publishing to Bluesky, but the longer-term idea is to support AT Protocol more generally.\n\nThere is still plenty missing. The polished \"post once, reach everywhere, and watch conversations come back home\" version is not here yet. But the preview is installable, public, and ready for folks who want to try it early.\n\nIf you want the release notes, download instructions, and current requirements, the public announcement is on Reclaim the Web.\n\nReclaim the Web became its own thing\n\nReclaim the Web started as the public home for FOSSE. It needed to explain what the plugin was, why it existed, and how someone could try it without reading a month of internal update posts. It also became the first real site where the copy, the theme, and the plugin kept bumping into each other. That pushed the site past \"announcement page\" and into something more useful.\n\nI didn't set out to make Reclaim the main thing. We needed a site for FOSSE, but as it came together, I kept thinking the theme might be useful on its own. I also used the theme build as an excuse to try Tangled. So I'm getting the Reclaim the Web theme ready for the WordPress.org theme directory.\n\nI have to admit, this part has been fun in a way I didn't expect. It's probably been over a decade since I last created a theme for WordPress.org, and this is the first block theme I have built. The theme system is very different now. [](https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/global-settings-and-styles/introduction-to-theme-json/), block templates, patterns, global styles, and the Site Editor change how the work feels. Some of it is cleaner than the old classic theme PHP-template mental model. Some of it still takes me a minute because my theme-building instincts were formed in the classic era.\n\nTry it, break it, tell us what felt weird\n\nFOSSE is still a developer preview, so expect some rough edges. If you try it, bug reports, setup notes, copy nits, and \"I expected this to do X\" feedback are all useful.\n\nThe plugin is on GitHub at Automattic/fosse, and the announcement on Reclaim has the current install notes. The theme is working its way through the review process.\n\nI like that the plugin and theme ended up connected. The plugin needed a site, and building that site into a theme brought me back to my WordPress theming roots a bit :)",
  "title": "FOSSE is in preview and Reclaim is headed to WordPress.org"
}