[Atp] Re: Floats support summary

[Bryan Newbold <[e-mail]>]

Hi Volker,

Thank you for picking this back up.

I continue to have strong concerns about depending on JSON numeric encoding
alone to determine whether a number is intended to be an integer or float.
The JSON data model is clear in having only a single overall numeric type,
and I think we need a more general and robust solution to this modeling
problem than relying on observed implementation behaviors. In many
situations and use-cases the encoding and distinction is not important, but
because atproto is content-addressed, it is important. I think a wrapper
encoding like the '$float' option you mention would be more suitable.

In your analysis of implementation behaviors, you noted JavaScript and Go
as language ecosystems where special care and configuration is required to
ensure consistent encoding behavior. Those are both popular languages in
general, and top languages in the atproto ecosystem today. As noted above I
don't think the behaviors of individual JSON implementations are
particularly important for making this decision, but it is concerning to me
that these languages would not work reliably "out of the box".

I'm putting together some more specific examples and a counter-proposal to
share with the list. I'd love to get feedback on all this from more folks,
both atproto developers and IETF community folks. The upcoming IETF 127
meeting seems like a good time frame for converging on a path forward.

--bryan

On Fri, Oct 23, 2026 at 7:09 AM Volker Mische <[e-mail]>
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> the discussions about the floats calmed down over the past few months,
> no new objections have been raised. Hence I've published a blog post [1]
> which summarized the whole discussion and draws some conclusions. The
> result is a straight forward change to the current repo draft spec [2].
>
> If you have any new insights or ideas that haven't been covered by the
> summary, please share them prior to the IETF 127 meeting so that we can
> use the time there to get it over the finish line. I'll attend remotely
> and will be available for Q&A.
>
> [1]:
>
> https://vmx.cx/cgi-bin/blog/index.cgi/floats-on-atproto-summary%3A2026-10-23%3Aen%2CATProto
> [2]: https://github.com/ietf-wg-atp/drafts/pull/35
>
> Cheers,
>    Volker
>
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