Nostr Event

An event is the only object in Nostr: a signed JSON blob with a kind number, some tags, and content, which relays store and forward without interpreting.

Why it matters

Everything is an event. A profile, a note, a reaction, a long-form article, a podcast comment thread — all the same structure with a different kind. That uniformity is why a Relay can be dumb: it never has to know what it is storing.

For podcasting it means a comment thread named by <podcast:socialInteract> is just an event, which any client can fetch and reply to — see Cross-app Comments.

How it works

An event carries pubkey, created_at, kind, tags, content, and sig. The id is the SHA-256 of the serialised event, and sig is a Schnorr signature over that id — so anyone can verify authorship without asking a server whether it is genuine.

kind is an integer naming the type: 0 is metadata, 1 a short note, and so on, with ranges reserved for replaceable and ephemeral events. tags carry references to other events and pubkeys, which is how threading and mentions work.

Sources

• NIP-01, the base protocol: https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/01.md