Adam Wiggins

Introducing GAIOS Our first update about the ARIA Safeguarded AI Programme and project GAIOS, which uses Keyhive. A recap of LIVE 2025. A new lab note from the Beckett team, two new researchers-in-residence, three new staff, and a new Automerge website.

So much good stuff happening at @inkandswitch.com these days!

www.inkandswitch.com/newsletter/...

Embarcadero Center garden area, we’re in this glass box on the left.

Todd’s type systems

Todd’s book making station

Community space for hacking

We’re hosting @syncconf.bsky.social Community Day and have an open space to drop in, hack, do demos, and connect with others working on sync and related systems.

Feel free to drop in during the day, we’ll do a few group discussions in the afternoon.

luma.com/l28n75qt

@adamwiggins.bsky.social calling out a lot of important things in his talk:

Idealism vs pragmatism in software

Preventing data lockin during this AI shift

Longevity of software and data preservation

Preview of my @syncconf.bsky.social talk

Just five days away now, getting excited!

Getting excited for the conf, just 2.5 weeks away

The density of top-notch developers speaking (and attending) is off the charts!

Four of the top minds in web development on stage together! 🔥

It's a huge amount of work to run a CFP process, but also rewarding. Hope to write a debrief post about how we did it at some point.

The Holy Grail for web apps is when my Passkey can unlock local private data.

I think the DX piece—it just seems more fun to build this way.

Why sync · Adam Wiggins Web developers are discovering the joys of sync, including next-frame UIs, multiplayer by default, and a simplified stack.

I wrote about this including

- the benefits of synced apps for UX and DX
- how it plays with agentic apps and LLM-assisted coding
- the relationship to local first
- why I got involved with Sync Conf

adamwiggins.com/posts/why-sync

Sync seems to be having a moment among web developers!

I bought my ticket already and will be there!

Figuring out which of my colleagues at @inkandswitch.com might join us, and maybe a little community hacking alongside.

Have something to say about sync engines, local first, or sync as an enabler for AI agents? Submit your talk soon.

Announcing Sync Conf 2025. Join us in SF on Nov 12th.

The Syncing Era of the Web | Frontend at Scale The rise of sync engines, local-first development, and the end of the state management wars.

“The syncing model solves a fundamental challenge of most modern web apps out there, and it does it in a way that feels, well… better.”

frontendatscale.com/issues/50/

Linear sent me down a local-first rabbit hole | Bytemash A deep dive into local-first architecture, triggered by wondering why Linear feels so fast. Looking at the technical implementation, exploring tools like Jazz and Electric SQL, and explaining why my n...

“The concept is beautifully simple: instead of your app being a fancy form that sends data to a server, it has its own local database. Sometimes the server is just another client to sync with. It can be a fundamental inversion of how we build web applications.”

bytemash.net/posts/i-went...

TanStack DB with Sync - the future of real-time UI - Neon Learn how to achieve end-to-end reactivity and optimistic UI updates with Electric SQL, TanStack DB, and Postgres.

“It’s magical to update a row in Postgres and instantly see the UI reflect that change. This simplifies background tasks, makes multi-device and multi-user flows easier to reason about, and reduces boilerplate. Just write to Postgres and let the sync engine do the rest.”

neon.com/blog/tanstac...

Mozilla Careers — Engineering Manager, DOM (Web Standards) or SpiderMonkey (Javascript) — Open Positions Mozilla is hiring a Engineering Manager, DOM (Web Standards) or SpiderMonkey (Javascript) in Remote US, Security, Security, Security, Strategy, Operations, Data & Ads,…

😍 Eng manager job working on storage APIs, workers, etc for Firefox. Relevant to improving local-first apps in the browser! www.mozilla.org/en-US/career...

A line chart with vibe on the Y axis and understanding on the X axis with a downwards diagonal line

A helpful graph made by @stevekrouse.com on the inverse relationship between vibes and understanding in AI assisted code.

Put a few thoughts down here: maggieappleton.com/2025-08-vibe...

Original article: blog.val.town/vibe-code

Kintsugi: Decentralized E2EE Key Recovery Kintsugi is a protocol for key recovery, allowing a user to regain access to end-to-end encrypted data after they have lost their device, but still have their (potentially low-entropy) password. Exist...

📄✨ New paper! Emilie Ma (kewbi.sh) and I looked at the problem of users of end-to-end encrypted apps recovering their private keys if their device is lost, broken, or stolen. We found a cryptographic approach that is decentralised and resilient against social engineering arxiv.org/abs/2507.21122

Automerge TypeScript Maintainer Industrial research lab working on digital tools for creativity and productivity

Do you write TypeScript? Enjoy Automerge? Love building both tools and community? You might be a great fit for our ✨new✨ Automerge TypeScript Maintainer role!

www.inkandswitch.com/jobs/automer...

(Remote role, 🇬🇧 UK-based preferred but not required)

Automerge 3 is here: the heart transplant is complete! Huge improvements in memory usage and (in most cases) correspondingly big performance improvements too. Backwards compatible on disk and the network so there's no reason not to upgrade today: automerge.org/blog/automer...

This pattern is at the core of how @livestore.dev handles sync, offline support, and conflict detection — and it’s been really fun diving deep into it while working on the upcoming course.

If you’ve ever wanted to build local-first apps that sync like magic, this approach is worth understanding.

Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of locked-down apps The original promise of personal computing was a new kind of clay. Instead, we got appliances: built far away, sealed, unchangeable. In this essay, we envision malleable software: tools that users can...

Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of locked-down apps
www.inkandswitch.com/essay/mallea...

Introducing… (Not Boring) Camera

3 years, 100+ prototypes, and wild graphics tech to make our perfect camera. Only to say… forget perfection. Just have fun and capture life’s beautiful chaos. Hope you love it as much as we do—thumbprints and all 🖤

notbor.ing/camera

Johannes Schicking, Nik Graf, Leo Stewen, and myself huddled around a laptop with stickers on it. More people in the background

Me on stage speaking as part of a panel, sitting next to Aaron Boodman

Panel discussion in front of an audience of hundreds at Local First Conf

Me standing and talking to Sam Willis in the conference hallway

Nice impressions from @localfirstconf.com (photography by Susanne Elsässer)

Next week looking plausible! Editing is a surprising amount of work.

Continuing with organizer reflections: bsky.app/profile/adam...

Thanks everyone for coming and making it such a special event ❤️