Editing Handle (section)

== Structure ==
Handles in the AT Protocol are structured as domain names, following the format:<syntaxhighlight lang="text">
username.tld
username.domain.tld
</syntaxhighlight>For example, <code>alice.bsky.social</code> or <code>bob.example.com</code> are both valid handles.

This domain-based approach allows users to maintain their identity under domains they control, providing a robust [[wikipedia:Domain_Name_System|DNS]]-based account verification mechanism at the protocol level. 

Handles support [[wikipedia:Internationalized_domain_name|Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)]], allowing non-ASCII characters through [[wikipedia:Punycode|Punycode]] encoding. For example, the handle <code>xn--ls8h.test</code> would display as <code>💩.test</code> in supporting applications.