NIP-10

Text Notes and Threads

draft optional

This NIP defines kind:1 as a simple plaintext note.

Abstract

This NIP describes how to use "e" and "p" tags in text events, especially those that are replies to other text events. It helps clients thread the replies into a tree rooted at the original event.

The .content property contains some human-readable text.

e and p tags can be used to define note threads, replies and mentions.

Markup languages such as markdown and HTML SHOULD NOT be used.

Marked "e" tags (PREFERRED)

["e", <event-id>, <relay-url>, <marker>, <pubkey>]

Where:

<event-id> is the id of the event being referenced.
<relay-url> is the URL of a recommended relay associated with the reference. Clients SHOULD add a valid <relay-url> field, but may instead leave it as "".
<marker> is optional and if present is one of "reply", "root", or "mention".
<pubkey> is optional, SHOULD be the pubkey of the author of the referenced event

Those marked with "reply" denote the id of the reply event being responded to. Those marked with "root" denote the root id of the reply thread being responded to. For top level replies (those replying directly to the root event), only the "root" marker should be used. Those marked with "mention" denote a quoted or reposted event id.

A direct reply to the root of a thread should have a single marked "e" tag of type "root".

This scheme is preferred because it allows events to mention others without confusing them with <reply-id> or <root-id>.

<pubkey> SHOULD be the pubkey of the author of the e tagged event, this is used in the outbox model to search for that event from the authors write relays where relay hints did not resolve the event.

The "p" tag

Used in a text event contains a list of pubkeys used to record who is involved in a reply thread.

When replying to a text event E the reply event's "p" tags should contain all of E's "p" tags as well as the "pubkey" of the event being replied to.

Example: Given a text event authored by a1 with "p" tags [p1, p2, p3] then the "p" tags of the reply should be [a1, p1, p2, p3] in no particular order.

Deprecated Positional "e" tags

This scheme is not in common use anymore and is here just to keep backward compatibility with older events on the network.

Positional e tags are deprecated because they create ambiguities that are difficult, or impossible to resolve when an event references another but is not a reply.

They use simple e tags without any marker.

["e", <event-id>, <relay-url>] as per NIP-01.