#+date: [2026-07-21 Tue]
#+title: Forking SkunkyArt
#+description: Announcing my fork of SkunkyArt, an alternative privacy frontend for DeviantArt, now maintained under Zero Labs.
#+slug: skunkyart-fork
#+filetags: :development:self-hosting:

* SkunkyArt

I've forked [[https://git.macaw.me/skunky/SkunkyArt][SkunkyArt]], an alternative privacy frontend for DeviantArt that works
entirely without JavaScript, over to the [[https://github.com/zerolabsco][Zero Labs]] organization on GitHub.

** Project Links

- [[https://github.com/zerolabsco/skunky-art][Source]]
- [[https://github.com/zerolabsco/skunky-art/blob/master/INSTANCES.md][Instances]]
- [[https://github.com/zerolabsco/skunky-art/issues][Issues]]

** Why Fork?

I didn't fork this project just for fun. At the time I found it, the upstream
repository hadn't been updated in over a year, carried a number of unresolved
bugs, and every instance on its public list was a dead link. Rather than let a
genuinely useful privacy frontend rot, I decided to pick it up and keep it
maintained.

** What's Changed So Far

The fork is already a handful of releases ahead of upstream. Highlights so far:

- *Security & hardening*: fixed a forged-subdomain bypass in the media proxy,
  hardened the HTTP transport, server timeouts, and panic paths, and tightened
  the random-art retry loop.
- *Bug fixes*: restored media serving, corrected the cache max-size conversion,
  fixed the build on macOS, and cleaned up various smaller issues.
- *Dependencies*: migrated to a maintained fork of the underlying DeviantArt API
  library, [[https://github.com/zerolabsco/devianter][devianter]], and bumped long-stale dependencies (with Dependabot
  keeping them current going forward).
- *Distribution*: prebuilt multi-arch Docker images (=linux/amd64= and =linux/arm64=)
  are now published to GHCR on every release tag:

#+begin_src sh
docker pull ghcr.io/zerolabsco/skunky-art:latest
#+end_src

- *Tooling*: added CI, golangci-lint, and outbound request throttling for
  DeviantArt.

* Run an Instance!

Since all of the previously listed instances are gone, the instance list is
starting fresh. If you'd like to host one, the [[https://github.com/zerolabsco/skunky-art][README]] covers setup — including a
Docker Compose example (plus an optional VPN egress variant) — and you can add
your instance to the list with a quick PR or issue.

As always, bug reports and contributions are welcome.