Owning your fediverse identity
2026-06-21
turva.dev runs on one rule: own the surfaces that carry your value, do not rent them. That rule moved the homepage off a third-party renderer, and it applies to identity too. My fediverse handle is now @erik@turva.dev, on infrastructure I control, not a username on someone else's server.
Why the handle matters
A platform handle is a dependency. If the server you joined changes its rules, slows down, or shuts off, your identity and your followers are stuck on it. The same logic that says frontier model access is not a moat says a platform username is not an identity. The address people use to find you should resolve to a domain you own.
How the split works
Mastodon lets the handle domain and the server domain differ. The account lives at social.turva.dev, but the handle is @erik@turva.dev. For that to work, turva.dev has to answer the discovery requests a remote server makes before it can reach the account.
The Cloudflare Worker that already fronts the apex does this. It redirects the well-known paths the fediverse asks for, host-meta and webfinger and nodeinfo, to the instance. Everything else the apex serves stays exactly as it was: the guides, the markdown, the agent manifests, the structured data. The same Worker that makes the site legible to agents now also carries the identity.
Verified, not asserted
The profile links to turva.dev, and turva.dev links back to the profile with a rel="me" relation. Mastodon checks both directions and marks the link verified. It is the same standard as the rest of the site. The claim is checkable rather than taken on trust.
The principle
Identity is infrastructure. If it lives on a domain you own, you can change servers, change hosts, or self-host later without changing your address or losing your followers. Renting the frontier is fine. Renting your name is not.
Find me on the fediverse at @erik@turva.dev. For an agent-readiness audit, contact info@turva.dev.