[str4d]

For a lower-friction firehose experience, you can use Jetstream [0] (by one of the Bluesky devs) which supports subscribing to specific Collection NSIDs and user repositories, and converts records to JSON for you.

There's a public instance URL in the README (with bandwidth limits), or you can self-host.

[0] https://github.com/ericvolp12/jetstream

[FroshKiller]

The firehose itself isn't really the fiddly part since it's just a WebSocket connection. Setting up the feed server, publishing the DID for its web host, then publishing the feed generator to the network were all kind of a low-grade hassle that killed a lot of my enthusiasm. Like none of it was especially complicated if you're doing it for a professional project or whatever, but I was just trying to goof around while watching episodes of Highlander: The Series, and it was taking me away from Duncan.

I'll check out this Jetstream project for sure, though.