NIP-0A

Discrete query messages - "FOLLOWS" and "FOLLOWERS"

'draft' 'optional'

Discrete query messages

Discrete query messages aim for relays to provide essential, quick and efficient searching methods instead of using the "REQ" message.

Each discrete query message should have a single function and be simple enough to obtain results from tables with indexes to ensure quick searching.

This NIP determines two discreet query messages, "FOLLOWS" and "FOLLOWERS."

"FOLLOWS"

"FOLLOWS" has the messaging pattern following.

["FOLLOWS", <subscription_id>, ["npub1", "npub2", ...] ]

Once the message is received, the relay should return each npub's follow list based on the latest kind 3 event.

The result is much simpler than the original kind 3 event such as:

["FOLLOWS", <subscription_id>, 
       {
              "pubkey": "npub1",
              "follows": [
              ["91cf9..4e5ca", "wss://alicerelay.com/", "alice"],
              ["14aeb..8dad4", "wss://bobrelay.com/nostr", "bob"],
              ["612ae..e610f", "ws://carolrelay.com/ws", "carol"]
              ]
       },
       {
              "pubkey": "npub2",
              "follows": [
                     ...
              ]
       },
       {
              "pubkey": "npub3",
              "follows": [
                     ...
              ]
       },
       ...
]

"FOLLOWERS"

"FOLLOWERS" has the following messaging pattern.

["FOLLOWERS", <subscription_id>, ["npub1", "npub2", ...] ]

Once the message is received, the relay should return the follower list of each npub based on aggregating all the latest kind 3 events of all the npubs. The result from the relay has the following pattern.

["FOLLOWERS", <subscription_id>, 
       {
              "pubkey": "npub1",
              "followers": [
              ["91cf9..4e5ca", "wss://alicerelay.com/", "alice"],
              ["14aeb..8dad4", "wss://bobrelay.com/nostr", "bob"],
              ["612ae..e610f", "ws://carolrelay.com/ws", "carol"]
              ]
       },
       {
              "pubkey": "npub2",
              "followers": [ 
                     ... 
              ]
       },
       {
              "pubkey": "npub3",
              "followers": [ 
                     ... 
              ]
       },
       ...
]

Communication between clients and relays

From client to relay:

The following message will be used to manage a query session, including "FOLLOWS" and "FOLLOWERS" already described above.

["CLOSE", <subscription_id>], used to stop the ongoing querying session.

From relay to client

Relays can send the following messages.

["EOSE", <subscription_id>], used to indicate the end of searching and the beginning of a new searching session. ["CLOSED", <subscription_id>, ], used to indicate that the subscription was ended on the server side. ["NOTICE", ], used to send a human-readable message in case of an error.

Appendix - managing the latest follows and followers of each npub

To obtain follows and followers of each npub from a relay, it should have an aggregated list of all the follows of the npubs that stored kind-3 to the relay such as:

npub(indexed)	follow(indexed)	main_relay	petname
npub1	npub2	wss://relay1.net	Bob
npub1	npub3	wss://relay1.net	Carol
npub1	npub4	wss://relay2.net	Dave
npub2	npub1	wss://relay1.net	Alice
npub2	npub3	wss://relay1.net	Carol
npub2	npub4	wss://relay2.net	David
npub4	npub1	wss://relay1.net
npub4	npub2	wss://relay1.net

Both the "npub" and "follow" columns must be indexed in the database. That way, by searching "npub" with a specific "follow," the relay can search for followers quickly.

npub(indexed)	follow(indexed)	main_relay	petname
npub2	npub1	wss://relay1.net	Alice
npub4	npub1	wss://relay1.net
npub1	npub2	wss://relay1.net	Bob
npub4	npub2	wss://relay1.net
npub1	npub3	wss://relay1.net	Carol
npub2	npub3	wss://relay1.net	Carol
npub1	npub4	wss://relay2.net	Dave
npub2	npub4	wss://relay2.net	David

("npub1" is followed by "npub2" and "npub4")

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