Why Feather exists

Gigi had been using Amethyst as his daily Nostr client on Android for a long time, and Wisp since it first appeared. When I asked what made him build Feather, he started with Amethyst.

“The great thing about Amethyst is that it supports everything. But the bad thing about Amethyst is also that it supports everything. It just became a little bit too bloated for my taste.”

It was the pop-ups that got to him. A relay connection would fail, or a Tor connection would fail, or an account on a paid relay would run out.

“It would throw pop-ups in your face like there was no tomorrow. That annoyed me enough that I wanted to try to build my own client and give it a good shot. I said, ‘I’m going to do it in 48 hours. I’m going to give myself a weekend and see how far I can go.’”

Feather uses Quartz, the Nostr library behind Amethyst. Gigi wanted to make sure that work got its credit.

“It’s basically Amethyst’s engine. Shout-out to Amethyst, to Quartz, to Vitor Pamplona, and to the whole Amethyst team.”

The first weekend

He wanted Feather to cover about 80 percent of his Nostr use. Most of that was familiar daily activity: browsing his feed, posting GM or good night, and replying to friends. Likes and zaps needed to take just one tap, so Nostr Wallet Connect belonged in that first version alongside the basic feeds.

The way those everyday actions felt mattered to him as much as having them available.

“I wanted it to feel really light and look really beautiful, and just be very fast without adding complexity.”

Once the basic views worked, he started using Feather to browse. That gave him a way to decide what to build next: use the app until something was missing or felt wrong, then fix it.

“I was just using Nostr as I normally would, and if I wanted to do something and it wasn’t possible yet in Feather, I just added it.”

A little over a week later, he was still working that way. By his estimate, he was nearing 200 iterations, with changes prompted by his own browsing and conversations. He thought another hundred might get him to 95 to 98 percent of the features he would ever need.

No DMs

There is one feature he has already ruled out.

“Feather will never support DMs of any kind. Never.”

He considers direct messaging on Nostr too broken to add to Feather. For people who want it, he points to dedicated NIP-17 clients and White Noise, and hopes those options will improve. His own preference is more personal.

“And I don’t believe in DMs anyway. I very much dislike direct messages. I’d rather have discussions out in the open.”

What belongs in Feather?

With so many additions, I asked how he would keep Feather from becoming the crowded client he had wanted to leave.

“I’ll definitely have to strike a balance. But I think the tabbed view I landed on helps with keeping things clean. Other kinds are in separate tabs. You can just swipe to the right to view this stuff, but the main feed, notifications, search, and so on will remain very clean.”

He is happy with how it works now, including the filtering and caching. It is fast enough for his needs, and he does not expect Feather to change very much.

“I think it comes down to taste. It comes down to what I think is in good taste. I don’t think I’ll lose it just by continuing to work on Feather. It’s something I’ve built up over decades of using the internet and using apps.”

“I hope I won’t ruin Feather by working on it too much.”

For all those releases, he still intends to keep Feather a weekend project. He works on it in his free time with voice prompts and expects to continue improving it on the side. He has no plans to make it his day job. Whether it finds a wider audience does not change why he built it.

“I hope it’s useful for other people as well. But I obviously built it mostly for me. If it only has one user, and the user is me, and the user is happy, then I consider it a success.”

Interview conducted by an AI assistant. Quotes edited for length and clarity.