Bluesky Starter Pack Lookup: Packs, Feeds and Creators

Search Bluesky starter packs and custom feeds, or check one by link. You get one row per pack or feed with its name, description, creator, how many accounts a pack holds, how many people joined through it, and how many likes a feed has. No login, no key, no proxy.

Who uses it

A community or newsletter manager who wants the best "start here" lists. Search a topic (rust developers, journalists, climate) and sort the packs by how many people actually joined through them.

A brand or PR team mapping who curates a niche. The creator handle on each row shows which accounts are building the lists and feeds your audience follows.

A researcher tracking a community's reach. Paste a list of pack or feed links and re-run it later to compare member, join and like counts.

What you get

One row per starter pack or feed. kind says which. Counts that do not apply to a kind are null, never 0.

Field	Starter pack	Feed
name, description, url, uri	yes	yes
creatorHandle, creatorDisplayName	yes	yes
memberCount (accounts in the pack)	yes	null
feedCount (feeds bundled in the pack)	yes	null
joinedAllTimeCount, joinedWeekCount	yes	null
likeCount	null	yes
createdAt	yes	null (Bluesky does not publish it)
updatedAt, sourceUrl, scrapedAt	yes	yes

Only public, professional fields are kept. Member lists, creator bios and avatars are never returned.

Example rows (fields as returned on 2026-10-11):

{"kind":"starter-pack","name":"Bluesky for Journalists","creatorHandle":"emilyliu.me","memberCount":52,"feedCount":3,"joinedAllTimeCount":37,"joinedWeekCount":0,"likeCount":null}
{"kind":"feed","name":"📰 News","creatorHandle":"aendra.com","memberCount":null,"likeCount":23977}

How to use

1. In the Apify Console. Open the actor page and click Start — the queries field is already pre-filled with a working example. Results land in the run's dataset as soon as each item is found.
2. Via the API. Call it directly with a POST request — no Console needed once you have an API token:

   curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~bluesky-starter-pack-lookup/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>" \
     -X POST \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"queries":["journalists"]}'
   

3. On a schedule. Save this actor as an Apify Task with the input you want, then add a Schedule (hourly, daily, weekly) so it runs on its own — no server of your own required.

Input

{
  "queries": [
    "journalists"
  ]
}

One per line. A search term (journalists, rust developers) returns the matching starter packs and custom feeds; a bsky.app starter-pack link, feed link or at:// address returns that one pack or feed. Accepted formats: journalists, https://bsky.app/starter-pack/emilyliu.me/3kvq2t2ctis2z, at://did:plc:kkf4naxqmweop7dv4l2iqqf5/app.bsky.feed.generator/verified-news.

Search terms return up to 10 starter packs and 10 feeds each (change it with "Stop after this many results", up to 25 of each). Links (a bsky.app/starter-pack/... link, a bsky.app/profile/.../feed/... link, or an at:// address) return that one pack or feed. Use "What to search for" to restrict a search to packs or to feeds.

Each pack costs one extra public request to read its member count. A feed link that uses a handle (not a did:) costs one more to resolve the handle.

Output

One row per starter pack or feed, for example:

query	found	status	resultCount	results	kind	name	description	url	creatorHandle	creatorDisplayName	memberCount	feedCount	joinedAllTimeCount	joinedWeekCount	likeCount	createdAt	updatedAt	uri	sourceUrl	scrapedAt
journalists	true	OK		<all results (full list)>									<joined via pack (all time)>	<joined via pack (past week)>						1970-01-01T00:00:00.000Z

A search or link that matches nothing comes back as one row with "found": false and is never charged. Missing values are null.

Pricing

Pay-per-event. A flat per-run fee covers session/proxy warmup; you're billed per item only when data is actually found and returned — see .actor/pay_per_event.json for exact prices. A miss is never charged.

Priced per starter pack or feed returned: $3 per 1,000 on the free plan, lower on paid Apify plans. A start fee of $0.003 applies per run. Searches that match nothing, bad links and blocked requests are never charged.

Example runs

Paste any of these into the Input tab and press Start. All three return rows with no key, no token and no account of your own beyond an Apify login.

Starter packs about a topic.

{"queries": ["journalists"], "kind": "starterPacks", "maxResults": 10}

Packs and feeds for several topics at once.

{"queries": ["rust developers", "climate"], "maxResults": 5}

Check one pack by its link.

{"queries": ["https://bsky.app/starter-pack/emilyliu.me/3kvq2t2ctis2z"]}

Limits

• Bluesky's search ranks by its own relevance, not by joins or likes; sort the dataset yourself.
• Counts are as of the run. Re-run on a schedule to see them change.
• The public API caps a search at 25 starter packs and 25 feeds per term.

Use it from Clay, n8n, Make, or an AI agent

This actor runs synchronously over plain HTTP — call it directly from a script, a workflow tool, or an AI agent, no Apify Console needed once you have an API token.

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~bluesky-starter-pack-lookup/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>" \
  -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"queries":["journalists"]}'

n8n. Add an HTTP Request node: Method POST, URL https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~bluesky-starter-pack-lookup/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>, Body Content Type JSON, JSON Body {"queries":["journalists"]} (swap in an expression from an earlier node for a real value).

Clay. Add an "HTTP API" column: Method POST, URL https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~bluesky-starter-pack-lookup/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>, Body {"queries":["{{search or link}}"]}, mapping the row's search or link into the queries array.

MCP. In Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client with the Apify MCP server, ask for "Bluesky Starter Pack Scraper" — the agent will find and run this actor.