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cobalt

August 12, 2026 2 min read
wiiucatprotoblueskyhomebrewgame

cobalt is a native AT Protocol / Bluesky client for the Nintendo Wii U, built as Aroma homebrew with devkitPro/WUT and SDL2. It aims to feel like a Wii U app that happens to show Bluesky content — rounded tiles, the system's blues and whites, a real GamePad layout — rather than the Bluesky website rendered through the console's browser. Both screens are first-class: TV plus GamePad together, and Off-TV Play with the GamePad on its own.

Named after the blue mineral, following the naming convention across wolfram, malachite, inkwell, and bismuth — and echoing Channel Blue, its Wii counterpart.

Status

Early, but usable in shape. Reading, posting, and interacting all exist; nothing has been run on real hardware yet.

  • Boots on real hardware, exits cleanly to the Wii U Menu
  • TV + GamePad and Off-TV Play layouts
  • Diagnostics screen (paths, network, TLS, session)
  • Sign in with an app password via on-screen keyboard, session saved across boots
  • Timeline, threads with replies/re-rooting, like/repost with undo, posting/replying
  • Notifications with mark-as-seen, profiles, follow/unfollow, avatars
  • Post images and link cards — markers for now
  • Search, custom feeds, lists, mutes, and blocks — not started
  • Video, GIFs, DMs, and push notifications — not planned (console limitations)

It builds and an extensive host test suite passes, but every milestone's real acceptance test is the console, and none of them have had one.

Requirements

A Wii U with Aroma already installed, and a Bluesky app password (not your account password — accounts with 2FA cannot use app passwords).

Installing

Copy cobalt.wuhb to sd:/wiiu/apps/ and launch it from the Wii U Menu.

Building

# Toolchain (once)
sudo dkp-pacman -S wiiu-dev wiiu-sdl2 wiiu-sdl2_ttf wiiu-sdl2_image wiiu-curl wiiu-mbedtls

# Wolfram, as a sibling checkout
git clone https://github.com/ewanc26/wolfram ../wolfram
cd ../wolfram
cmake -S . -B build-wiiu -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=$PWD/.devdeps/wiiu.cmake \
  -DWOLFRAM_BUILD_WIIU=ON -DWOLFRAM_BUILD_TESTS=OFF -DWOLFRAM_BUILD_EXAMPLES=OFF
cmake --build build-wiiu -j8 --target wolfram
cd -

# Cobalt
make bundle

Without the Wolfram sibling checkout, Cobalt still builds and boots, but every AT Protocol feature is disabled.

Licence

GPL-3.0 — see LICENSE.

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