On most social networks, the algorithm is a black box. You see what the platform decides you should see, optimised for engagement metrics that may have nothing to do with what you actually want. Bluesky took a fundamentally different approach: the algorithm is a marketplace. Anyone can publish a feed, anyone can subscribe, and you can pin multiple feeds to your home screen and switch between them freely. This changes how Bluesky feels to use — and it's worth understanding fully.
What Are Custom Feeds?
A Bluesky custom feed is an independently hosted algorithmic timeline. Each feed is a small web service — a "Feed Generator" — that receives requests from Bluesky and returns a list of post URIs. What logic determines that list is entirely up to the feed creator. Some feeds are simple: show all posts containing a keyword. Others are sophisticated: rank posts by engagement within your network, filter by language, or surface content from accounts you've never followed but whose posts are popular in your interest area.
From your perspective as a user, a custom feed looks and feels like a standard timeline tab. You subscribe to a feed, it appears in your Feeds bar, and you can switch to it any time. Your Following feed is itself just a feed — it's not special, it's just the default.
How to Find Custom Feeds
The in-app discovery is straightforward:
Open the Feeds tab
Tap the Feeds icon in the bottom navigation bar (it looks like a newspaper or grid). This shows your currently subscribed feeds.
Tap "Discover new feeds"
At the top of the Feeds screen you'll see a "Discover new feeds" or "Find feeds" option. This opens the feed discovery browser showing popular and trending feeds.
Search or browse by topic
Use the search bar to find feeds by keyword, or scroll through the curated list. Popular categories include science, art, tech, sports, news, and language-specific feeds.
Like to save, edit to pin
Tap the star/like icon on a feed to save it to your list. Then tap "Edit" in your Feeds tab to reorder feeds and pin your favourites to the tab bar for one-tap access.
Recommended Feeds to Start With
There are thousands of feeds. These are consistently well-regarded starting points:
- Discover (by Bluesky) — Trending content from across your network. Good for finding new accounts.
- Science — Posts from researchers, academics, and science communicators. High signal-to-noise ratio.
- Quiet Posters — Surfaces posts from people you follow who don't post often. Prevents them getting buried.
- News — Aggregates posts from journalists and news organisations.
- Mutuals — Shows posts from accounts that follow you back. Great for community feel.
- Popular with Friends — Shows content that people you follow are engaging with.
Tip: Don't pin more than 4–5 feeds to your tab bar. Having too many makes it harder to develop a rhythm with any of them. Start with 2–3 alongside Following, see which you actually use, then adjust.
How to Create Your Own Custom Feed
Building a feed requires a server that implements the Feed Generator interface — basically a web endpoint that responds to Bluesky's API requests with a list of post IDs. There are two main approaches:
No-code: Skyfeed and similar tools
Tools like Skyfeed.app provide a visual interface for creating keyword-based and rule-based feeds without writing any code. You define your rules (show posts containing #Astronomy, from accounts with more than 100 followers, in English), give the feed a name, and publish it. It's live on the network immediately.
Code: AT Protocol Feed Generator SDK
For more sophisticated feeds, Bluesky provides a TypeScript SDK and a starter template on GitHub. The basic flow is: clone the starter template, implement your algorithm in the handler function, host it on any server (Fly.io, Railway, a VPS), and publish the feed's DID to the network. The official documentation at docs.bsky.app covers this in detail.
Feed Etiquette
A few things to know before building or promoting a feed:
- Feeds that include other users' posts without being clearly labelled as aggregators can confuse people — be transparent about what your feed does.
- If your feed uses engagement metrics, be careful about incentivising low-quality viral content.
- You can set your feed to only show content from accounts you follow, which many users prefer for privacy.
- Bluesky can remove feeds that violate their community guidelines, even if you host the generator yourself.
See what's trending across Bluesky right now
BskySuite's Trending Topics tool shows the top hashtags and topics across Bluesky, updated every 30 minutes. Useful for knowing which feeds are most active at any moment.
🔥 See trending topics →Frequently Asked Questions
What are Bluesky custom feeds?
Bluesky custom feeds are user-created or third-party algorithmic timelines you can subscribe to alongside your main Following feed. Each feed is powered by its own logic — keyword filtering, engagement ranking, community curation, or anything the creator builds. Anyone can publish a feed using Bluesky's Feed Generator API.
How do I find custom feeds on Bluesky?
Tap the Feeds icon in the bottom nav bar, then tap "Discover new feeds". You can also search for feeds by keyword. Community sites list feeds by category — search for "Bluesky feed directory" to find current aggregators.
How do I add a feed to my account?
Find a feed you want, open it, then tap the star icon to save it. Go to your Feeds tab and tap "Edit" to reorder your feeds and pin your favourites.
Can I create my own Bluesky custom feed?
Yes. No-code tools let you create keyword-based feeds in minutes. For more complex feeds, Bluesky's Feed Generator SDK and starter template on GitHub make it straightforward to build and host a custom algorithm.