### API Updates, Farcaster Actions Spec, and Data Product Schema Improvements

**Oct 17, 2024**

by dylan

**API**

- **Recent Updates**
  - **Channel APIs**
    - `/feed/channel` APIs now show channel member content only by default
  - **Algorithmic Ranking**
    - MBD as a new feed provider, in addition to Openrank
    - Algo ranking on conversation replies
  - **Blocks**
    - Fetch blocks, blocked by
    - Blocked users are filtered out by default if you pass in `viewer_fid` to APIs like `/feed` and `/conversation`
  - **App level bans**
    - Ban certain users from showing up on your app without impacting the rest of the protocol — client level access for app developers
- **Up Next**
  - Location APIs — location data as part of user object
    - Available next week
    - Fetch users from a specific location — can build but not sure if people need it yet, reach out if interested
  - Twitter usernames — Twitter usernames will be part of hydrated user objects
  - Better embed data in cast objects — we already return metadata for embeds in most cases. Coming next:
    - Quote casts, twitter links

**Farcaster Actions**

- [Read the spec here](https://docs.neynar.com/docs/farcaster-actions-spec)
- Extends the same sort of auth signature for channel actions to other actions that clients might want to have
- eg. multiple clients using the same bookmarking service, other APIs etc
- Doesn't require Neynar the way the spec is designed (apps can just go through each other), or can use a Neynar POST endpoint so other apps using our signers can build this out

**Data Products**

- Upcoming — indexing custom schemas
  - Will start simple, timeline still TBD; actively investigating second half of October