i have red and still got told to mute while writing

this is the way.

by “create the feed”, I assume you mean “provide posts” when API call post/list is called?

yes.

why does a multi-reddit need multiple instances to collaborate to create the feed?

content is replicated in all federated instances. You only need to use the local copy and merge all the communities of the multi-reddit.

no? i am missing something?