Inspiration
App ideas
The possibilities of the BAQ platform are nearly endless. This can be jarring at first when trying to decide what to build. To spark inspiration, here are some examples of apps that could be created to replace some of the most popular online services we use every day.
A few apps were also built alongside the protocol to validate the APIs with real-world use cases. These are open-source and their record types can be re-used in other apps:
Motivation
- Make it easier to build clients, especially on mobile (sync, notifications).
- Make email data accessible to other apps within the BAQ universe.
- Email as a fallback for BAQ messaging when the other side doesn’t have it.
Architecture
Two record types:
- Email Thread
- Email Message (belongs to a thread)
Stateless bi-directional bridge:
- When a new email is received, create the corresponding BAQ record.
- When a new BAQ record is created, send the corresponding email.
Client apps read and create the BAQ email records.
(A proof of concept of this already exists and will be made available soon).
Motivation
- Make it easier to build clients (realtime sync, no CalDav).
- Expose calendar data to other apps (automation, dashboards, and so on).
- Share events without a clunky email back and forth.
Architecture
Two record types:
- Calendar
- Calendar Event (belongs to a calendar)
Query by date range to sync normal events + Fetch all recurring events.
Share event records with other people like any other records.
Bridges to other calendar systems (Google API, CalDav, Email).
Motivation
- Don’t lock-in a lifetime of memories in a proprietary ecosystem.
- Let developers innovate and build better photo gallery clients.
- Allow other apps to access photos for editing/sharing/classification/more.
Architecture
Four record types:
- Photo Collection
- Photo (belongs to a collection)
- Photo Album (belongs to a collection)
- Photo Album Item (links a photo and album)
Photos have a list of non-destructive edits, with links to blobs for the original file, intermediate renders, and thumbnails.
Tools to import from other photo gallery services.
Motivation
- Follow people on Mastodon, Threads, BlueSky.
Architecture
Post record type.
Stateless bi-directional bridge:
- Listen for ActivityPub activities and send BAQ records.
- Listen for BAQ records and send activities.
Motivation
- Let users own their reading list.
- Follow BAQ-powered blogs and newsletters.
Architecture
Article record type.
RSS bridge for compatibility with existing publications.
Browser extension to share web pages to.
Motivation
- Use BAQ as a headless CMS without giving up control of the content.
- Decouple the editor app + content storage + blog frontend.
- Allow people to follow blogs on BAQ for rich interactions.
Architecture
Article record type.
Client app to write and manage articles.
Publicly accessible blog:
- Worker that listens for webhooks and rebuilds the blog on change.
- OR dynamic server that queries the BAQ server and renders the
blog.
- OR static JS app that fetches from BAQ directly.
Motivation
- The social benefits of GitHub without the centralization (PRs, comments).
- Fine-grained permissions at the file level.
Architecture
Stateless Git bridge that exposes the Smart HTTP protocol.
Client app to explore repositories, create PRs, post comments.
Motivation
- Centralize all smart home data under the user’s control.
- Make it possible to build automation that spans multiple ecosystems.
- Make it easier to build client apps.
Architecture
Device record type that holds the current state of the device.
Stateless bridges to existing smart home ecosystems.
Devices connect over HTTP and listen for updates to their Device record.
Client app updates Device records to reflect user actions.
Automation services can react to changes in state and update the state in return (e.g. the “switch” device record is updated, in response to which the automation service updates the “lightbulb” device record).
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