Kb piefed

PieFed — Complete Reference

Overview

PieFed is a free, open-source, federated link aggregation and discussion platform — a Python-based alternative to Reddit and Lemmy in the Fediverse "Threadiverse." Created by Rimu Atkinson (Christchurch, New Zealand) with the first code published July 28, 2023 and the flagship instance (piefed.social) launched January 4, 2024. Licensed AGPL-3.0.

PieFed federates via ActivityPub using the same Group/Page/Note model as Lemmy, making it fully interoperable with Lemmy, Mbin, and the wider Fediverse. Its distinguishing features are: cross-post deduplication with merged comments, federated Feeds (multi-community collections via a custom Feed actor type), private/anonymous voting via proxy user profiles, trust & safety as a first-class design concern (reputation tracking, 3,000+ pre-blocked disinformation domains, AI content filtering), and a deliberately simple Python/Flask codebase designed for contributor accessibility.

The name "PieFed" is a portmanteau of "Python" and "Federation." The repository is named "pyfedi" and hosted on Codeberg (not GitHub). As of early 2026: 75+ instances, ~2,000 MAU, 82,571 lines of code, 62 contributors. "Very High Activity" on Open Hub.

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1. Technology Stack

Component	Technology
Backend language	Python (3.9+, ~70% of codebase)
Web framework	Flask
Frontend	htmx + vanilla JavaScript + Bootstrap CSS
Template engine	Jinja2
Database	PostgreSQL 17
ORM	SQLAlchemy (Flask-SQLAlchemy)
Migrations	Alembic (flask db upgrade)
Task queue	Celery with Redis broker
Cache	Redis 6.2 (optional)
Application server	Gunicorn
Real-time notifications	FastAPI + Uvicorn (separate service)
Linting	Ruff
i18n	Babel
Deployment	Docker (5-service compose), bare metal, YunoHost
License	AGPL-3.0

Design philosophy: "Clean, simple code" with "no fancy design patterns or algorithms." Only requires Python + PostgreSQL; Redis is optional. Dramatically lighter resource usage than Lemmy — one user reported server load of ~1 vs Lemmy's ~12 on identical hardware.

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2. ActivityPub Object Type Mapping

PieFed Concept	ActivityPub Type	Notes
Community	Group	Relay actor; Announces content to followers
User	Person	Creates content, moderates
Bot	Service	Bot accounts
Feed	Feed	PieFed extension (FEP-1d80); federated multi-community collection
Post	Page	Primary post type, mandatory title (name)
Article	Article	Long-form content
Link post	Link	URL submissions
Comment	Note	Tree structure via inReplyTo
Poll	Question	oneOf/anyOf choices, up to 15 options
Event	Event	startTime, endTime, timezone, participantCount
Video	Video	PeerTube video embeds
Direct message	ChatMessage	Private user-to-user

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3. Communities as Group Actors

Communities are Group actors with their own inboxes, following the same Announce relay pattern as Lemmy — all content flows through the community actor and is wrapped in Announce for distribution to subscribers across instances.

Community-Specific Attributes

Attribute	Description
sensitive	NSFW flag
nsfl	Not-safe-for-life flag (separate from NSFW)
genAI	AI-generated content flag
postingRestrictedToMods	Only moderators can post
newModsWanted	Community is seeking moderators
privateMods	Moderator list is hidden
defaultPostType	Default content type for new posts
questionAnswer	StackOverflow-style Q&A mode enabled
moderators	OrderedCollection of moderators
featured	Pinned posts collection
tagsForPosts	Available flair/tag options (Lemmy-compatible)

Moderator Attribution

PieFed accepts both attributedTo (Lemmy/Mbin style) and moderators (Kbin style) for moderator lists, improving cross-platform compatibility.

Community Types

• Federated (default): Full ActivityPub federation
• Local-only: Visible only on the home instance, no federation
• Private (v1.6+): Invitation-only, no federation, posts visible only to members

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4. Voting — Like, Dislike, and Private Votes

PieFed uses Like (upvote) and Dislike (downvote) activities, same as Lemmy. However, PieFed adds a private/anonymous voting system that is unique in the Threadiverse.

Private Voting Mechanism

Users have two profiles: a main profile (for posting) and an anonymous proxy profile (no name, avatar, or bio) used exclusively for voting. When "Vote privately" is enabled:

• Votes sent to Lemmy/Mbin instances use the anonymous proxy profile
• New accounts have private voting enabled by default
• Votes can also be fully local (not federated at all)

Community-Level Vote Controls

• Moderators can restrict downvoting to subscribed members only
• Downvoting can be restricted to "trusted" instances (a third tier between full federation and defederation)
• Communities can disable downvotes entirely
• "Low quality" communities (e.g., memes) don't award karma for upvotes

Reputation Tracking

• "Attitude" metric: tracks ratio of downvotes to upvotes per user; flags excessive downvoters
• Comments scoring -10 or below are auto-collapsed
• Users with negative karma get red warning icons next to names (double red for severely negative)
• New accounts (first 7 days) display a special indicator

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5. The Feed Actor (FEP-1d80)

PieFed introduces a custom Feed actor type — a federated equivalent of Reddit's multi-reddits. This is defined in FEP-1d80.

A Feed is an ActivityPub actor of type Feed that aggregates multiple communities (Group actors) into a single subscribable collection. Feeds can include communities from any federated instance, PeerTube channels, and Mastodon accounts.

• Feeds can be public (discoverable, subscribable) or private
• Feed actors are discoverable via WebFinger
• Users on remote PieFed instances can subscribe to a Feed like any other actor
• Feeds are managed via Add/Remove activities to add/remove communities

This is a PieFed-specific extension — Lemmy and Mbin do not support the Feed actor type, though the FEP is open for adoption.

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6. Full Activity Reference

Incoming Activities

Activity	Purpose
Follow	Subscribe to community/feed
Accept / Reject	Subscription response
Create	New post, comment, chat message, poll
Update	Edit post/comment, update community profile
Delete	Remove post, comment, PM, feed
Like	Upvote
Dislike	Downvote
EmojiReact	Custom emoji reaction (unicode or :name: format)
PollVote	Vote in a poll
ChooseAnswer	Mark comment as answer (Q&A mode)
Add	Add moderator, sticky post, add community to feed
Remove	Remove moderator, unsticky post, remove from feed
Lock	Lock post or comment (including children)
Flag	Report content
Announce	Boost/share (wraps other activities)
Undo	Reverse any previous activity

Community → Followers

Activity	Purpose
Accept{Follow}	Automatic response to Follow
Announce{*}	Rebroadcast received activities to all followers

Community outboxes serve Announce(Create(Page)) activities even for non-local posts, functioning as content relays.

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7. JSON-LD Context and Extensions

Context

[
  "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
  "https://w3id.org/security/v1"
]

Lemmy-Compatible Extensions

Property	Used on	Description
tagsForPosts	Group	Available flair/tag options (Lemmy CommunityTag)
postingRestrictedToMods	Group	Restricted posting
language	Page, Note	Language metadata (identifier + name)

PieFed-Specific Extensions

Property	Used on	Description
genAI	Group, Page	AI-generated content flag
nsfl	Group, Page	Not-safe-for-life flag
flair	Note	User flair (custom extension on comments)
postingWarning	Group	Contextual warning above comment form
interactionPolicy	Page	Interaction restrictions
newModsWanted	Group	Community seeking moderators
questionAnswer	Group	Q&A mode enabled

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8. Federation Architecture

Activity Processing Flow

1. Parse JSON request body
2. Check federation pause status (normal / overload / permanently closed)
3. Extract actor and validate HTTP signature
4. Deduplicate via Redis (activity IDs stored with 90-second TTL)
5. Route to handler based on activity type
6. Process asynchronously via Celery task

HTTP Signatures

Aspect	Detail
Algorithm	RSA-SHA256 (also accepts hs2019)
Key size	2048-bit RSA
Signed headers	(request-target), Host, Date, Digest, Content-Type, Accept
Date tolerance	3,600 seconds (1 hour)
Fallback	LD signatures via URDNA2015 normalization
Key cache	Up to 1,000 entries

Reliability

• Failed deliveries enter a retry queue with retries over several days
• Batched federation between PieFed instances reduces load
• Redis-based locking minimizes database deadlocks
• Federation can be paused during overload conditions

Key Endpoints

Path	Purpose
/.well-known/webfinger	User, community, and feed discovery
/.well-known/nodeinfo	NodeInfo schema links
/nodeinfo/2.0, /nodeinfo/2.1	Server stats and protocol info
/u/<actor>	User actor (content-negotiated JSON/HTML)
/c/<actor>	Community actor
/inbox	Shared inbox
/site_inbox	Site-level inbox
/api/v1/instance	Mastodon-compatible instance info

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9. REST API

PieFed's API is intentionally "95% the same as the Lemmy API" to enable reuse of Lemmy's mobile app ecosystem.

Aspect	Detail
Base path	/api/alpha/
Documentation	Swagger at /api/alpha/swagger
Total endpoints	100+
Rate limiting	Applied to creation endpoints

Compatible Mobile Apps

Voyager, Interstellar (Android/iOS/Linux/Windows), Blorp (iOS), Summit, with Boost and Photon in development.

Endpoint Categories

• Site (5): instance info, configuration
• Communities (17): CRUD, flair, bans, moderation
• Feeds (3): create, edit, list
• Posts (18): CRUD, polls, flair, voting
• Comments (13): CRUD, answer marking
• Private messages (8): send, read, delete
• Users (20): profiles, notifications, flair, bans
• Search (4): content discovery
• Images (4): upload, manage
• Admin (2): site management

Notable Unique Endpoints (beyond Lemmy)

• /post/poll_vote — poll voting
• /comment/mark_as_answer — Q&A answer selection
• /feed/* — Feed (multi-reddit) management
• /community/flair/* — flair management
• /user/set_flair — user flair

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10. Moderation and Trust & Safety

PieFed was designed with safety as a first-class concern, drawing inspiration from the Mastodon Covenant and "nudge theory."

Reputation System

• Karma tracking with sortable low-karma account lists
• "Attitude" metric: percentage of downvotes vs upvotes per user
• Visual indicators: red icons for negative karma, double-red for severe, special icon for accounts < 7 days old
• Auto-collapse for comments at -10 or below

Content Filtering

• 3,000+ pre-loaded domain blocklist (disinformation, conspiracy, fake news sites)
• 4chan screenshot detection via image recognition (auto-reported)
• AI content labeling: posts/communities tagged as AI-generated; users can hide all AI content like NSFW
• NSFW and NSFL as separate flags
• Keyword filtering: user-configurable
• Bot content filter: single checkbox

Admin Tools

• Ban / Ban + Purge on user profiles
• IP-based ban evasion detection
• Username keyword filtering (blocks e.g. "1488")
• Web of trust: follow another instance's blocklist automatically
• Registration approval queue
• "Authoritarian Inoculation" feature with default blocks on known extremist instances

Community-Level Moderation

• Per-community downvote policies
• Comment and post locking
• Post approval workflow (optional pre-publication review)
• Contextual warnings above comment forms
• Searchable moderation log
• Federated community bans
• newModsWanted flag for moderator recruitment

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11. Content Types

Type	Details
Link posts	URL submissions
Text posts	Markdown body
Image posts	With alt text; width control via 
Video posts	Direct upload (v1.5+, admin-configurable)
Polls	Question with oneOf/anyOf, up to 15 options, Mastodon-compatible
Events	Time, timezone, location, participant count
PeerTube videos	Embedded player, auto-import from channels
Cross-posts	Deduplicated with consolidated comment views
Scheduled posts	With timezone support
Wiki pages	Per-community editable wikis
Emoji reactions	Unicode and custom (:piefed:), federated as Likes for Lemmy compat
Quote posts	v1.6+, Mastodon quote-boost interop
StackOverflow Q&A	Comments markable as answers via ChooseAnswer
Spoilers	Flair-based with image blurring + inline spoiler text

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12. Interoperability

Lemmy

• Fully compatible: Group communities, Page posts, Note comments, Like/Dislike votes, Announce relay
• API is 95% Lemmy-compatible (mobile apps work)
• Shared extensions: tagsForPosts, CommunityTag
• Limitation: polls and events cannot be posted TO Lemmy communities (prevented in PieFed's code to avoid errors)
• Community outboxes follow Lemmy's Announce(Create(Page)) pattern

Mastodon

• Users follow PieFed communities by mentioning them
• First paragraph becomes post title; rest becomes body
• Works: hashtags, images, alt text, videos, NSFW, polls, markdown, mentions, comments, editing, likes, boosts
• Poll voting is bidirectional
• Quote-boost interop (v1.6+)
• /api/v1/instance Mastodon-compatible endpoint

PeerTube

• Channels can be followed directly from PieFed
• Videos arrive with embedded player
• New channels auto-import 10 recent videos
• Posts restricted to channel owners

Mbin / Kbin

• Full community federation
• PieFed accepts Kbin's moderators property alongside Lemmy's attributedTo

Known Limitations

• "Discoverability between PieFed and other parts of the Fediverse is limited"
• Markdown variants differ slightly from Lemmy's
• Remote Mastodon Announce activities without full inlined objects are logged but skipped

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13. Installation and Deployment

Bare Metal

git clone https://codeberg.org/rimu/pyfedi.git
python -m venv venv && source venv/bin/activate
pip install wheel && pip install -r requirements.txt
cp env.sample .env  # configure SECRET_KEY, DATABASE_URL, etc.
flask db upgrade && flask init-db
gunicorn -b 0.0.0.0:5000 pyfedi:app

Setup reported to take "within half an hour."

Docker (5 services)

Service	Purpose
db	PostgreSQL 17
redis	Redis 6.2
celery	Celery worker for async federation tasks
app	Flask/Gunicorn web app (port 8030)
piefed_notifs	FastAPI/Uvicorn real-time notifications (port 8040)

Other Options

• YunoHost: available in app store (v1.4+)
• Managed hosting: fedihost.co (beta), Elest.io
• S3 storage: Cloudflare R2, Wasabi, Backblaze B2 for media and post archival

Scaling (piefed.social reference: 8-core, 16GB, ~1000 MAU)

• PostgreSQL: shared_buffers=6GB, effective_cache_size=9GB, max_connections=300
• DB pool: POOL_SIZE=30, MAX_OVERFLOW=70
• Nginx caching recommended (RAM-backed /dev/shm/nginx)
• Post archival to S3 reduces database size over time

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14. Codebase Structure

pyfedi/
├── app/
│   ├── activitypub/        # Federation (routes, signatures, util, actor)
│   ├── admin/              # Admin panel
│   ├── api/alpha/          # Lemmy-compatible REST API
│   ├── auth/               # Authentication
│   ├── chat/               # Real-time chat
│   ├── community/          # Community management
│   ├── feed/               # Feed (multi-reddit) management
│   ├── post/               # Post handling
│   ├── search/             # Search
│   ├── shared/tasks/       # Celery async tasks (adds, blocks, deletes,
│   │                       #   flags, follows, groups, likes, locks,
│   │                       #   notes, pages, removes, users, maintenance)
│   ├── plugins/            # Plugin system
│   ├── tag/                # Hashtag management
│   ├── models.py           # All DB models (209KB single file)
│   ├── inoculation.py      # Anti-propaganda feature
│   └── constants.py
├── migrations/             # Alembic migrations
├── tests/
├── docs/                   # Developer docs, AP examples, ERD
├── compose.yaml            # Docker Compose (5 services)
├── pyfedi.py               # Entry point
├── FEDERATION.md           # Federation documentation
└── CONTRIBUTING.md

Key namespaces: app.activitypub, app.api.alpha, app.community, app.post, app.feed, app.shared.tasks

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15. PieFed vs Lemmy — Key Differences for Implementers

Aspect	PieFed	Lemmy
Language	Python/Flask	Rust/Actix-web
Resource usage	~1 load avg	~12 load avg (same hardware)
Feed actor type	Yes (FEP-1d80)	No
Private voting	Proxy user profiles	All votes public/federated
Cross-post dedup	Merged comment views	Separate posts
AI content flag	genAI property	No
NSFL flag	Separate from NSFW	No (NSFW only)
EmojiReact	Yes (federated as Likes to Lemmy)	No
ChooseAnswer	Yes (Q&A mode)	No
Event objects	Yes	No
PollVote	Yes (Mastodon-compatible)	No native polls
Flair federation	flair on Note + tagsForPosts	tagsForPosts only
API path	/api/alpha/	/api/v3/
API compatibility	95% Lemmy-compatible	—
JSON-LD processing	Plain JSON (no expansion)	Plain JSON (no expansion)

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16. Common Implementation Mistakes

1. Assuming PieFed is a Lemmy fork: PieFed is a completely separate Python codebase, not a Rust fork — protocol-compatible but architecturally different

2. Not handling the Feed actor type: PieFed federates Feed actors via WebFinger; other software should treat unknown actor types gracefully rather than erroring

3. Expecting public votes: PieFed defaults to private voting — vote activities may come from anonymous proxy profiles or not at all. Do not assume vote counts match federated Like/Dislike activities

4. Ignoring genAI and nsfl properties: PieFed adds these to Group and Page objects — unknown properties should be ignored, not cause parsing errors

5. Sending polls/events to PieFed communities hosted on Lemmy: PieFed prevents posting polls and events to remote Lemmy communities because Lemmy doesn't support them — but if you federate these object types to PieFed-hosted communities, they will work

6. Not handling EmojiReact: PieFed sends EmojiReact activities for emoji reactions — these federate as Like activities to Lemmy for compatibility, but other implementations may receive the raw EmojiReact type

7. Assuming all communities federate: PieFed supports local-only and private communities that are invisible to federation

8. Not supporting ChooseAnswer: In Q&A mode communities, PieFed sends ChooseAnswer activities to mark accepted answers — unknown activity types should be ignored gracefully