Federation
Federation lets Vidra instances communicate with each other and with other platforms in the decentralized web. A user on one Vidra instance can follow a channel on another instance, and that interaction is synchronized through open protocols — without either instance needing a central authority.
Vidra supports two federation families: ActivityPub (the Fediverse — PeerTube, Mastodon, Pleroma) and AT Protocol (BlueSky). WebFinger provides cross-instance user and channel discovery for both families.
Vidra is protocol-compatible with PeerTube. ActivityPub follows, likes, and comments flow freely between Vidra and PeerTube instances. Existing PeerTube users can follow Vidra channels without any special configuration.
Federation Architecture
The diagram shows two federated instances (Vidra Instance A and a PeerTube instance), plus connections to the BlueSky AT Protocol network and the broader Mastodon/Fediverse. Solid lines are active data exchanges; the dashed line is a discovery lookup.
Federation Protocols
| Protocol | Purpose | Compatible Platforms | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| ActivityPub | Follow, like, comment, and share videos across instances | PeerTube, Mastodon, Pleroma, Misskey | The primary Fediverse protocol. Vidra exposes both an Outbox (outgoing activities) and an Inbox (incoming activities). |
| AT Protocol | Publish videos to BlueSky, sync engagement metrics | BlueSky PDS | Vidra acts as an AT Protocol bridge, translating video events into AT repo records. |
| WebFinger | Discover users and channels by @handle@domain across instances | All federated platforms | Served at /.well-known/webfinger. Required for any cross-instance follow to work. |
| WebTorrent | P2P video streaming — reduces bandwidth by letting viewers share load | PeerTube, WebTorrent-compatible clients | Optional. Torrent files are generated during transcoding if WebTorrent is enabled. |