How to create a new Keybase proof

[Bouska]

Instead of waiting for the Keybase team to add suggested proofs on #518, I decided to try and do it myself. I created a Mastodon scraper for https://github.com/keybase/proofs but I have no idea how to test it or how to integrate in it the client. It seems there is a lot of duplicates between the Public proof system (https://github.com/keybase/proofs) and the PVL (https://keybase.io/docs/client/pvl_spec), but I don't know if it's relevant. So my question is: is there a doc on how to add a new proof on Keybase?

[maxtaco]

You have it mainly correct --- the server uses proofs (the old node.js client used to use the same library too); and the client uses pvl. "PVL" is our little DSL for specifying how the clients should scrape proofs, which we pin to our merkle tree. We can rollout a new PVL without app updates in case something changes in a hurry. But it's a pretty limited language.

We have a long list of other services we need to support. Probably instagram is next on list. But server-side and client support isn't all there is to it. We also have to make UI changes in a number of places, so there's a fair amount of lifting involved. We're focusing on finishing up teams and performance right now.

[Bouska]

So from what I understand, adding a new proof is complex and demands broad changes so you don't encourage external input on that and you don't plan to document that for now?

Would you still be interested by a PR of a new scrapper (seems there has been one for bitbucket but is currently useless without further changes) or a new PVL?

[mldulaney]

I, too, am interested in this.

[solvaholic]

These other issues all request Mastodon verification support in Keybase as well:

https://github.com/keybase/client/issues/6859

https://github.com/keybase/client/issues/8715

https://github.com/keybase/client/issues/9378

https://github.com/keybase/keybase-issues/issues/2948

https://github.com/keybase/proofs/issues/72

@Bouska made some progress toward creating it; @maxtaco explained in Oct 2017 some other, higher priorities for the Keybase team and added:

But server-side and client support isn't all there is to it. We also have to make UI changes in a number of places, so there's a fair amount of lifting involved.

The request list in https://github.com/keybase/keybase-issues/issues/518 includes dozens of platforms. The Keybase community seems willing to share the development workload.

How can we help make that happen?

[xkr47]

It seems the main discussion is happening in the issue referenced by @fr1t2, where the main developer (Gargron) has apparently gotten involved in discussions with keybase staff.