About Skein
Skein is a calm social app for staying close to people you know. You choose who you follow and see their posts newest first.
- ✓ Two feeds, both newest first. Nothing is ranked.
- ✓ Posts, photos (with optional descriptions), replies, likes, reposts, quotes, and #topics.
- ✓ Each post is for everyone or just your followers. Your whole account can be private, and then new people ask to follow and you approve them.
- ✓ Hide posts, block, report, and words to hide. Hiding and blocking can be undone, and nobody is told. Bookmarks and lists are only yours.
- ✓ Invite a friend with your link. When they join, they follow you, you get one alert, and their profile says they joined from your invite.
- ✓ Light, dark, or match your device. Choose which alerts you get.
- ✓ Download or delete your data anytime. Free to use.
How feeds work
- • Following: posts from people you follow, newest first. When you reach what you've already seen, it ends. Until your first Follow it is empty, and Home suggests a few people and one public post to start with.
- • Discover: everyone's public posts, newest first. Not ranked.
- • Welcome shows recent public posts before signup. Sample accounts are marked Demo. When posts from real people outnumber samples, the sample explainer drops — the labels stay.
- • Once you follow a few people and post, Home gets quieter: fewer explainers and shorter tips. The feeds stay newest first.
- • Not sure why a post is in front of you? Tap ··· on it, then Why you see this. You get one plain sentence, like “You follow @maya.” Skein doesn't use what you like or watch to pick posts.
- • Rather not see numbers? Turn on Hide like counts in Settings. Hearts and reposts show without numbers, and Alerts shows a dot instead of a count. Only you see it that way.
- • Want most posts to stay with your followers? In Privacy, turn on New posts start as Followers only. You can still make any single post public.
- • Words to hide can apply everywhere or only on Discover, so people you follow are never filtered by a Discover-only word.
- • A new person's first post is labeled First post. A short, kind reply goes a long way. If you haven't posted yet, opening theirs offers a gentle Say hello starter.
- • Replies go one level deep, so conversations stay easy to follow.
- • Alerts tell you when someone follows, replies, likes, mentions, or reposts. No “you might have missed” nudges.
Your data
- • Skein keeps your account (email for sign-in, never shown), what you post, and what you follow, like, save, or hide.
- • No ads, no ad trackers, no analytics scripts. We don't sell or share your data.
- • You can download everything or delete your account anytime in Settings. The full list is on the Privacy page.
Early MVP: a handful of people, no direct messages, no phone apps yet. Ada, Alan, Grace, and Maya are made-up sample accounts (marked Demo) so the app isn't empty, and anyone can sign in as them to look around. They're reset every day. Skein runs on free hosting plans. There are no ads and no paid features. The source code is on Codeberg under the MIT license. Tell us what is broken or confusing on the Feedback page. A person reads every note, and if you are signed in you can see when yours is read or fixed. Public posts also have an RSS feed. Try topics like #privacy or #calm. Longer builder notes: Telegra.ph write-up.