nips/01.md

NIP-01

Nostr Protocol

draft mandatory

This NIP defines the mandatory part of the Nostr protocol. New NIPs may add new fields, message kinds, and features to the structures and flows described here.

Signed Events

Events are the only data type transferred across the network. They consist in 5 inputs and 2 calculated attributes:

• pubkey defines the signer of the event
• kind defines the type of event
• tags defines indexable and queryable properties of the event
• created_at defines the time it was created or signed
• content contains the contents of the event

These attributes are then hashed to create an event id. The id is signed with the user's private key and placed in sig.

Events are formatted as follows:

{
  "id": <string 32-byte lowercase hex-encoded sha256 of the serialized event data>,
  "pubkey": <string 32-byte lowercase hex-encoded public key used to sign>,
  "created_at": <integer unix timestamp in seconds>,
  "kind": <integer between 0 and 65535>,
  "tags": [
    [<string tag1-name>, <string tag1-value>, ...],
    [<string tag2-name>, <string tag2-value>, ...],
    // ...
  ],
  "content": <string>,
  "sig": <string 64-byte lowercase hex of the signature of the id>
}

Hashing Algorithm

To assemble the .id, hex encode the result of a sha256 of the UTF-8 byte array of a JSON-serialized string in the following structure:

[
  0,
  <string pubkey, as a lowercase hex>,
  <integer created_at>,
  <integer kind>,
  <stringarray tags, as an array of arrays of non-null strings>,
  <string content>
]

The JSON serialization MUST follow these rules:

• Minified: No whitespace, line breaks, or other unnecessary formatting used
• Escape Set: ONLY the following characters MUST be escaped:
  • line break: 0x0A to \n
  • double quote: 0x22 to \"
  • backslash: 0x5C to \\
  • carriage return: 0x0D to \r
  • tab character: 0x09 to \t
  • backspace: 0x08 to \b
  • form feed: 0x0C to \f

Signing

Use an secp256k1 ECDSA library to sign the .id with the user's private key.

This is the same curve used by Bitcoin. Signatures and encodings follow the Schnorr signatures standard for the curve secp256k1 specification.

Verifying

To verify the authenticity of an event:

1. Recalculate the .id and check against the incoming .id
2. Verify if the signature is valid for the .id and .pubkey.

Kinds

The .kind attribute specifies the meaning of an event and its tags.

Kinds are grouped in 4 numeric ranges to provide explicit storage behaviors for clients and relays:

• Regular: All events are stored in disk and will last for as long as possible.
• Ephemeral events are to be discared as soon as processed. They are ideal to send commands that should be executed immediatedly or not executed at all.
• Replaceable events can be quickly updated by newer versions. They are ideal for status events that are always changing and the history of such changes is not important.
• Parameterized replaceable events extend replaceable kinds to offer an extra identifier as the replacement anchor

Ranges and instructions are as follows:

Range Name	Range	SHOULD retain
Regular	1000 <= kind < 10000	All events
Replaceable	10000 <= kind < 20000 OR 0, 3	The newest event for each pubkey and kind
Ephemeral	20000 <= kind < 30000	Nothing
Parameterized	30000 <= kind < 40000	The newest event for each pubkey, kind and d-tag

Parameterized Replaceable events MUST include a d tag with an unmodifiable identifier as value to be used as a reference. Tag values that reference the newest replaceable event MUST use this format: <kind>:<32-byte lowercase hex of a pubkey>:<d-tag value>. The d tag MUST be unique within the same kind and pubkey.

In case of replaceable events with the same timestamp, the event with the lowest .id (first in lexical order) SHOULD be retained. Older versions MAY be kept but SHOULD not be returned on queries.

This NIP defines the kind:0 as User Metadata. The .content is set to a stringified JSON object {name: <user's name, string>, about: <string>, picture: <url, string>}. Since other attributes might exist, Clients SHOULD preserve any unsupported attribute when updating this event.

Tags

Each tag is an array of strings of arbitrary size. Their meaning is determined by the event .kind. Tags with the same name might have entirely different meanings in different kinds.

The first element of the tag array is referred to as the tag name and the second as the tag value. All elements after the second do not have a conventional name.

All single-letter (only English alphabet letters: a-z, A-Z) tag names are indexed by relays for faster queries.

This NIP defines the format of 3 referencing tags: e, p, and a. Tags e, p can be used to reference events and pubkeys respectively, and tag a references the latest version of a replaceable event. Clients MAY a- and e-tag parameterized replaceables simultaneously.

Name	Value	Other Params
e	<32-byte lowercase hex of an event id>	<relay URL, optional>
p	<32-byte lowercase hex of a pubkey>	<relay URL, optional>
a	<kind>:<32-byte lowercase hex of a pubkey>:	<relay URL, optional>
a	<kind>:<32-byte lowercase hex of a pubkey>:<d-tag value>	<relay URL, optional>

The <d-tag value> component of the a tag is an empty string ("") when referencing non-parameterized but replaceable events.

Relay Protocol

Nostr has two main components: Clients & Relays. Users run a client to publish and fetch events from one or more Relays via WebSockets.

Relays are not expected to communicate with one another. It's the Client's responsibility to discover which relays have the event set their user wants to see.

Both sides SHOULD verify the .id and the signature of each event upon receipt.

Clients SHOULD open a single WebSocket connection to each relay and use it for all their subscriptions. Relays MAY limit the number of connections from specific IP/client/etc.

All messages are defined as JSON arrays, where the first item determines the message type.

Subscriptions

Clients fetch events using a subscription message with one or more filters. Upon receipt, the Relay MUST query its database, return all events that match the filter and keep applying the filter to all connections, returning new events in real-time as they arrive.

Subscriptions stay indefinitely open until either side closes the subscription or the connection.

Subscription Requests

To request or update a subscription, send a REQ message with the format

["REQ", <string subscription_id>, <string filter1>, <string filter2>, ...]

To stop receiving events from a subscription:

["CLOSE", <string subscription_id>]

A REQ message on an existing subscription overrides the previous subscription.

subscription_id is a non-empty string with a maximum length of 64 chars. Relays MUST manage <subscription_id>s independently for each WebSocket connection. <subscription_id>s are not globally unique.

filterX is a stringified JSON object that determines what events will be sent in that subscription, it can have the following attributes:

{
  "ids": [<string id1>, <string id2>, ...],
  "authors": [<string pubkey1>, <string pubkey2>, ...],
  "kinds": [<integer kind1>, <integer kind2>, ...],
  "#<tag1-name (single-letter a-zA-Z)>": [<string tag1 value1>, <string tag1 value2>, ...], 
  "#<tag2-name (single-letter a-zA-Z)>": [<string tag2 value1>, <string tag2 value2>, ...],
  ...,
  "since": <integer unix timestamp in seconds, events must be newer than this to pass>,
  "until": <integer unix timestamp in seconds, events must be older than this to pass>,
  "limit": <integer maximum number of events to return, sorted by created_at descending>
}

A REQ message may contain multiple filters which are interpreted as an OR statement: events that match any of the filters are to be returned.

Attributes are a logical AND statement: all present attributes must match for the filter to pass.

Array attributes (i.e. ids, authors, kinds, and tag filters) represent a logical OR statement. At least one of the arrays' values must match the respective field in the event to be considered a match. In the case of tag attributes such as #e, for which an event may have multiple values, the event and filter condition values must have at least one item in common.

The ids, authors, #e, and #p filter lists MUST contain exact 64-character lowercase hex values.

The since and until attributes are used to specify the time range of events returned in the subscription. An event matches the filter if since <= created_at <= until holds.

The limit attribute informs the maximum number of events to return, sorted by .created_at from newest to oldest. It operates over the previously stored events and is ignored afterward.

Subscription Responses

The EVENT message is used to send events requested by clients:

["EVENT", <string subscription_id>, <string JSON-serialized event>]

Once all matching events are sent, an EOSE message follows to indicate the end of stored events and the beginning of events newly received in real-time.

["EOSE", <string subscription_id>]

CLOSED messages can be when the relay refuses to fulfill a REQ or when it decides to kill a subscription before a client has disconnected or sent a CLOSE, a CLOSED message is sent:

["CLOSED", <string subscription_id>, <string prefix:message>]

The message MUST be a string formed by a machine-readable single-word prefix followed by a : and then a human-readable message.

Publishing

To send an event to the Relay, Clients send a broadcast message in the format:

["EVENT", <string JSON-serialized event>]

Relays reply with an ACK message in the format of:

["OK", <string event_id>, <bool accepted>, <string prefix:message>]

OK messages MUST be sent in response to EVENT messages received from clients, they must have the 3rd parameter set to true when an event has been accepted by the relay, false otherwise. The 4th parameter MUST always be present, but MAY be an empty string when the 3rd is true.

If present, the message MUST be a string formed by a machine-readable single-word prefix followed by a : and then a human-readable message.

Notices

Notices are human-readable warnings that might help explain or debug the behavior of a given relay or filter.

["NOTICE", <string message>]

Message Prefixes

The standardized machine-readable prefixes for OK and CLOSED are: duplicate, pow, blocked, rate-limited, invalid, and error for when none of that fits.

Some examples:

• ["OK", "b1a649ebe8...", true, ""]
• ["OK", "b1a649ebe8...", true, "pow: difficulty 25>=24"]
• ["OK", "b1a649ebe8...", true, "duplicate: already have this event"]
• ["OK", "b1a649ebe8...", false, "blocked: you are banned from posting here"]
• ["OK", "b1a649ebe8...", false, "blocked: please register your pubkey at https://my-expensive-relay.example.com"]
• ["OK", "b1a649ebe8...", false, "rate-limited: slow down there, chief"]
• ["OK", "b1a649ebe8...", false, "invalid: event creation date is too far off from the current time"]
• ["OK", "b1a649ebe8...", false, "pow: difficulty 26 is less than 30"]
• ["OK", "b1a649ebe8...", false, "error: could not connect to the database"]
• ["CLOSED", "sub1", "duplicate: sub1 already opened"]
• ["CLOSED", "sub1", "unsupported: filter contains unknown elements"]
• ["CLOSED", "sub1", "error: could not connect to the database"]
• ["CLOSED", "sub1", "error: shutting down idle subscription"]