[hipstersmoothie]

Why

Feedback from a user: "instead of having different app categories making it hard to find things outside of a few… like the list with filters on the side!" (à la modrinth.com).

Discovery was split across /apps/all, /apps/tags, /apps/$tag, /categories/…, /ecosystems/…, /apps/lexicons and /search, and the header had no navigation links, only a search icon. /apps/all also hid every ecosystem tool (Bluesky clients, feeds, …).

What

/apps: one list with a filter sidebar

• Filters: Tags (searchable, with show-all), Rating, Works with data from (shared lexicons, grouped by the site that defines them), Extras (open source, accepts donations, official account) and Category (standalone apps plus each app ecosystem and its tool categories). Tags and Rating start expanded; the other groups start collapsed and open automatically when they have a selection.
• Every option shows a live count. Values within a group are OR'd; groups are AND'd.
• Search (q), sort (trending, top rated, most reviewed, most favorited, newest, recently updated, A–Z), page and every filter are in the URL, with readable comma-joined params (/apps?tag=social,games&in=apps/bluesky).
• Rows show icon, handle, tagline, category and tag badges (clicking a badge adds it as a filter), rating, favorites and last updated. Results are paginated 24 per page.
• On mobile, the filters open in a drawer with a "Show N apps" button.
• Protocol and developer listings stay out of this page, the same rule /search used.

Header

• Browse · Tags · Shared data links, plus an inline search box that opens /apps?q=.
• The mobile menu button is turned back on.
• "Developer API" stays in the footer.

Redirects (301) to /apps presets

Old	New
/apps/all, /search	/apps (keeps sort and q)
/apps/<tag>	/apps?tag=<tag> (keeps the tag OG image and title)
/categories/<id>	/apps?in=<id>
/ecosystems/<app>/all	/apps?in=apps/<app>

Internal links (home "See all", footer, tag cards, ecosystem pages, product-page badges) now point straight at /apps. /apps/tags, /apps/lexicons and /ecosystems/<app> remain as index pages.

Data

• New getBrowsePage server fn: takes the URL search params and returns one page of 24 trimmed cards plus facet counts. Filtering, facet counts, sorting and pagination run on the server through pure, unit-tested logic in src/lib/browse-listings.ts.
• The catalog (every verified non-protocol listing, plus favorites, dates, popular rank, repo lexicon NSIDs and link types) is cached in memory for 60s, so filter clicks don't each hit the database. Newly approved listings can take up to a minute to appear.
• The whole /apps HTML is about 30 KB gzipped on the dev server; data embedded in the page is about 23 KB. Text search covers the full description.
• Removed getAllListings, getAllApps, getAppsByTagPage, getDirectoryBrowsePath (it returned a dead /categories/all link), and other helpers only the old pages used.

Public API: fyi.atstore.directory.searchListings

• New optional params that mirror the page's filters: tag, category, data (all repeatable), minRating (3, 4 or 4.5) and has (open-source, donations, official).
• New sorts: rating, reviews, favorites and updated.
• The endpoint now runs on the same cached filtering logic as /apps and loads full card rows only for the requested page.
• Existing calls keep working. Protocol listings stay in API results (use category=protocol), and only listings with a published listing.detail record are returned, as before.
• Text search now uses the /apps matching rules: it also covers the developer handle and category names, and search terms can match category labels rather than only the raw category paths.
• Tag params, on both the page and the API, accept tag text (developer tool) or slugs (developer), and the web URL is rewritten to the slug.
• The lexicon JSON and generated bundle are updated, and the developer docs mention the new params. The lexicon still needs publishing with pnpm atproto:publish-lexicons; this PR doesn't do it.

Notes / follow-ups

• Facets are computed in memory on the server, which takes about a millisecond at today's catalog size. If the catalog grows into the thousands, consider moving them to SQL.
• Old protocol category links (/categories/protocol%2F…) now land on an empty /apps view.

Testing

• tsc --noEmit passes. vitest: 126 tests pass, 18 of them new for the browse logic. pnpm lex:lint passes.
• oxlint is clean on changed files. The remaining errors are in files this PR doesn't touch.
• Checked by hand in the dev server against real data: desktop and mobile layouts, filter toggling and URL sync, the mobile drawer, every redirect, and the mobile header menu. Also exercised searchListings with every new param, repeated and comma-joined values, cursor paging and an invalid cursor.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code