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content/posts/0-draft-embracing-atproto-pt-2-tangled-knot.md

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       description: |

     

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           You thought Github was a social coding platform? Think again, get ready to tangle!

     

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           Built on atproto, tangled allows you to use your Bluesky identity on a (not quite yet) fully feldged git platform!

     

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       date: 2025-09-09

     

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       date: 2025-09-15

     

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       authors:

     

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         - name: finxol

     

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       tags:

     
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       Embracing ATProto, part 1: Setting up a PDS

     

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       ::

     

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       The PDS setup was an overall very smooth process.

     

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       Bluesky and the AT Protocol are backed and built by a very competent team of well funded engineers for a few years already.

     

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       The PDS setup and migration was an overall very smooth process.

     

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       Bluesky and the AT Protocol are built by a very competent team of well funded engineers working on it for a few years already.

     

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       ## What's tangled?

     

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       Tangled, on the other hand, was started only about 8 months ago, at the start of 2025 by [two](https://tangled.sh/@oppi.li) [brothers](https://tangled.sh/@icyphox.sh).

     

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       It's a "social-enabled git collaboration platform"

     

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       [Tangled](https://tangled.sh), on the other hand, was started only about 8 months ago, at the start of 2025 by [two](https://tangled.sh/@oppi.li) [brothers](https://tangled.sh/@icyphox.sh).

     

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       It's a "social-enabled git collaboration platform" built for decentralisation, ownership, and social coding.

     

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       The platform has gained a lot of traction since, and the community is very much involved in the development, but for now tangled is still in alpha.

     

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       That doesn't mean it's not usable yet.

     

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       That doesn't mean it's not usable yet, just that some things may break.

     

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       ### What's a Knot?

     

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       In tangled, a knot is essentially a git server.

     

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       It's sort of like an atproto PDS in the sense that it's where your data—here your code—lives.

     

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       That's the main tangled-specific decentralised part, and what makes tangled special.

     

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       You can keep ownership of your code, without cutting it off from a popular git platform by running it on a private Gitea or Gitlab server.

     

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       ## Setting up a Knot

     

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       ## Setting up a Spindle

     

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       Setting up my own knot took a little bit more work than for the PDS.

     

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       The [official docs](https://tangled.sh/@tangled.sh/core/blob/master/docs/knot-hosting.md) give instructions for installation on a NixOS system.

     

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       ## Spindles & CI

     

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       Another piece of lingo from the tangled world is "Spindle".

     

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       A Spindle is a very simple CI runner for tangled.

     

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       It runs one Docker container per run, and gives access to any Nixpkg.

     

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       The syntax is very similar to Github Actions workflow files, with some slight differences.

     

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       Since it's brand new, there isn't access to the thousands of pre-made reusable Github Actions,

     

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       but access to the vast nixpkg catalog lets us do basically anything—with a couple extra steps from time to time.

     

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       ### Self-hosting

     

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       As with everything else here, Spindles are self-hostable.

     

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       There is a little gotcha for the moment though.

     

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       Since the Spindle runs a Docker container for each workflow run, it needs access to the Docker socket.

     

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       They haven't got Docker-in-Docker working quite yet, so it means the Spindle needs to run natively outside a Docker container.

     

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       Although I don't like the idea, it's not really a problem for me.

     

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       I prefer to have everything containerised on my servers to keep things tidy, but it's fine as a temporary solution until they get DinD working.

     

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       What's stopping me right now is rather that workflow runs would spin up a Docker container alongside all my other projects I'd rather not break.

     

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       I'm aware it shouln't really be a problem, but it just bothers me.

     

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       It is very much a me problem, so I'll figure out a way around it eventually.

     

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       ## Migrating this blog

     

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       Migrating the repo over is the simplest things ever.

     

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       Just create a new repo on tangled—selecting your knot—set the remote on your local repo, and push to it!

     

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       If you specified the knot correctly when creating your repo, it should now live directly on your Knot.

     

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       <img src="/posts/embracing-atproto-pt2/new-repo.png" alt="Select your new knot when creating a repo" width="80%" style="margin: auto;" />

     

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       You can now use git just as you normally do!

     

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       ### CI

     

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       Migrating CI takes a tiny bit more work to migrate.

     

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       I had a Github Action workflow to automatically deploy this blog to Deno Deploy on push.

     

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       <details class="minor-callout">

     

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       <summary>Here's the full file if you're curious.</summary>

     

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       ```yaml

     

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       name: deno-deploy

     

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       on:

     

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           push:

     

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               branches:

     

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                   - main

     

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       jobs:

     

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           deploy:

     

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               runs-on: ubuntu-latest

     

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               permissions:

     

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                   id-token: write # Needed for auth with Deno Deploy

     

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                   contents: read # Needed to clone the repository

     

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               steps:

     

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                   - uses: actions/checkout@v3

     

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                   - uses: pnpm/action-setup@v4

     

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                     name: Install pnpm

     

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                     with:

     

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                         run_install: false

     

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                   - uses: actions/setup-node@v3

     

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                     with:

     

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                         node-version: 22

     

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                         cache: pnpm

     

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                   - run: pnpm install

     

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                   - run: pnpm generate

     

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                   - name: Deploy to Deno Deploy

     

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                     uses: denoland/deployctl@v1

     

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                     with:

     

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                         project: finxol-blog

     

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                         entrypoint: https://deno.land/std@0.140.0/http/file_server.ts

     

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                         root: .output/public

     

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       ```

     

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       </details>

     

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       Let's start off very easy by adapting the triggers.

     

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       Just [follow the docs](https://tangled.sh/@tangled.sh/core/blob/master/docs/spindle/pipeline.md), and set the same trigger conditions.

     

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       ```yaml

     

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       when:

     

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           - event: ["push"]

     

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             branch: ["main"]

     

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       ```

     

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       I'll have a look at branch deploys later.

     

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       It needs a bit more manual work since the official GH Action doesn't do it for us.

     

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       Since spindles work slightly differently to Github Actions runners, we need to give it a list of dependencies to install.

     

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       It's similar to the setup steps in the GH workflow to install node and pnpm.

     

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       ```yaml

     

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       dependencies:

     

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           nixpkgs:

     

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               - deno

     

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               - nodejs

     

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               - pnpm

     

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               - python3

     

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               - gnused

     

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       ```

     

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       This bit took a bit of trial and error, as you might notice from the `python3` and `gnused` dependencies.

     

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       I'd initially set the dependencies to what I set up in the GH workflow, `nodejs` and `pnpm`, plus `deno` to be able to use the `deployctl` cli tool.

     

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       But running that gave a few errors.

     

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       This blog uses Nuxt Content to generate HTML from my Markdown files, and Nuxt Content itself uses `better-sqlite3`, which itself needs python and sed in its post-install script.

     

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       Adding the corresponding nixpkgs in the dependencies array fixes this easily.

     

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       Now we can get to the actual steps of the workflow.

     

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       Since we don't have access to the existing Github Actions, there's a few sections that needed adapting or manual work.

     

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       The install and generate steps are exactly the same, but the deploy step changes.

     

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       To replace the official Deno Deploy GH Action, we can directly use their `deployctl` cli tool, and give it the appropriate parametres.

     

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       I also used this as an excuse to using the `jsr:@std/http/file-server` entrypoint instead of the deno.land url style.

     

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       ```yaml

     

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       steps:

     

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           - name: Install dependencies

     

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             command: |

     

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                 pnpm install

     

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           - name: Generate static site

     

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             command: |

     

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                 pnpm generate

     

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           - name: Install deployctl

     

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             command: |

     

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                 deno install -gArf jsr:@deno/deployctl

     

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           - name: Deploy to Deno Deploy

     

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             command: |

     

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                 cd .output/public

     

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                 ~/.deno/bin/deployctl deploy --project finxol-blog --entrypoint jsr:@std/http/file-server --include=. --prod

     

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       ```

     

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       Lastly, don't forget to give the workflow permission to deploy by giving it a `DENO_DEPLOY_TOKEN` in the secrets!

     

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       Since Deno Deploy integrates only with Github, the permission won't be given automatically here.

     

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       <details class="minor-callout">

     

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       <summary class="text-stone-500">Here is the full spindle workflow file.</summary>

     

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       ```yaml

     

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       when:

     

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           - event: ["push", "pull_request"]

     

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             branch: ["main"]

     

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       dependencies:

     

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           nixpkgs:

     

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               - deno

     

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               - nodejs

     

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               - pnpm

     

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               - python3

     

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               - gnused

     

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       engine: "nixery"

     

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       steps:

     

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           - name: Install dependencies

     

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             command: |

     

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                 pnpm install

     

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           - name: Generate static site

     

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             command: |

     

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                 pnpm generate

     

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           - name: Install deployctl

     

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             command: |

     

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                 deno install -gArf jsr:@deno/deployctl

     

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           - name: Deploy to Deno Deploy

     

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             command: |

     

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                 cd .output/public

     

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                 ~/.deno/bin/deployctl deploy --project finxol-blog --entrypoint jsr:@std/http/file-server --include=. --prod

     

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       ```

     

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       </details>

     

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       It took me a little bit more time to get things working right.

     

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       I found a little bug in the tangled UI regarding spindle runs.

     

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       When pushing to the official knot, the workflow got picked up fine by the official spindle, and showed up in the UI.

     

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       When I pushed to my knot however, the official spindle ran the workflow, but it didn't show in the UI.

     

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       It took me a while to realise what was going on.

     

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       I thought the spindle wasn't picking up the workflow, but the bug was simply with showing the info in the UI.

     

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       [Anirudh](https://tangled.sh/@icyphox.sh) was very quick to find the cause and implement a fix.

     

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       And just like that, this blog gets deployed automatically on push, using the tangled spindle!

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