A Well Known URL For Your Personal Avatar

Well-known URLs are pretty neat. I’ve even dared propose one before here on my blog.

And now I’m here to propose another:

.well-known/avatar

The idea is: anybody that owns a domain can put their avatar in a well-known location.

I’ve already implemented this for my own site^[1]. You can see it here:

jim-nielsen.com/.well-known/avatar

In some ways, this is really just for me. I often find myself needing an avatar of me for one reason or another. At first, I put a file in my Dropbox folder so that I could access it on any device whenever and wherever I needed it. But then I thought, “What’s even easier than accessing a file through a service like Dropbox? Accessing a URL.”

And, remembering that .well-known URLs are a thing, I figured why not put it at a URL I can remember and easily share with others?

Think Gravatar but on a web where your domain is your social handle^[2].

I don’t know how you’d actually go about making .well-known a standard — it looks complicated. And there’s probably a lot more considerations you’d want to spec out, like:

• What’s the recommended size for the avatar?
• What format should it be in? Can you request that?
• What aspect ratio should it have?
• How do you specify (optional) alternatives?
• Should you be able to provide avatars for more than one person under a given domain?

Those are all great questions. I don’t know the answers — but KISS is probably your friend here.

That said, if you’ve ever found yourself needing quick access to your commonly-used avatar (and you own your domain) do yourself a favor and put it at a URL you and others will remember: .well-known/avatar.