Long-form Content

1 Overview

A kind-1 note is short and frozen. An article is long and lives on. This NIP defines kind 30023 for long-form text content, generally called an article or a blog post.

Kind 30023 is an addressable event as defined in NIP-01. The relay keeps only the latest event for each pubkey + kind + d-tag-value triple. So the author can edit an article. Readers always fetch the newest version at the same address.

The content is Markdown. Metadata such as the title, a cover image, and a summary travel in tags. A stable NIP-19 naddr code links to the article from anywhere.

This NIP is optional. "Social" clients that deal primarily with kind-1 notes are not expected to implement it.

2 Format

The content of a kind-30023 event is a string of text in Markdown syntax. The goal is maximum compatibility and readability across clients and devices. A client that creates long-form notes must follow two hard rules:

• MUST NOT hard line-break paragraphs of text. Do not insert arbitrary line breaks, for example at 80-column boundaries.
• MUST NOT support adding HTML to the Markdown.

{
  "kind": 30023,
  "created_at": <unix ts of the LAST update, seconds>,
  "content": <article body, Markdown, no HTML, no hard line breaks>,
  "tags": [
    ["d", <stable article identifier>],
    ["title", <article title>],          // optional
    ["image", <cover image URL>],         // optional
    ["summary", <article summary>],       // optional
    ["published_at", <unix ts, string>],  // optional
    ["t", <topic hashtag>], ...            // optional
  ],
  "pubkey": <author>, "id": <...>, "sig": <...>
}

3 Metadata Tags

Use the created_at field for the date of the last update. Use t tags for "tags" or "hashtags": topics for which the article is relevant. Other metadata fields can be added as tags when necessary. This NIP standardizes four of them. All four remain strictly optional.

4 Editability

Articles are meant to be editable. Each article must include a d tag with an identifier for the article. To publish a new version, sign a new kind-30023 event with the same d value. The relay replaces the old version.

Clients should take care to publish and read these events only from relays that implement addressable replacement. If a relay does not implement it, clients should also take care to hide old versions of the same article that they may receive.

5 Linking and References

Link to an article with the NIP-19 naddr code along with the a tag. The a tag form is defined in NIP-01: ["a", "30023:<pubkey>:<d value>", <relay URL, optional>].

References to other Nostr notes, articles, or profiles must follow NIP-27. Write them inside the content as NIP-21 nostr:... links. Optionally add matching e or a tags for these references, as the example in §7 shows.

6 Replies and Comments

Replies to a kind-30023 article MUST use NIP-22 kind 1111 comments. Do not reply with kind-1 notes. The comment carries the article's address, so it survives edits of the article.

7 Worked Example

The event below is the spec's example article, published and then confirmed by the relay. The content holds NIP-27 nostr: references. The e and a tags mirror those references.

-- author publishes the article --
→ ["EVENT", {
    "kind": 30023,
    "created_at": 1675642635,
    "content": "Lorem [ipsum][nostr:nevent1qqst8cujky046negxgwwm5ynqwn53t8aqjr6afd8g5…]
      dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt
      ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. […] Read more at nostr:naddr1qqzkjurnw4ksz…",
    "tags": [
      ["d", "lorem-ipsum"],
      ["title", "Lorem Ipsum"],
      ["published_at", "1296962229"],
      ["t", "placeholder"],
      ["e", "b3e392b11f5d4f28321cedd09303a748acfd0487aea5a7450b3481c60b6e4f87",
            "wss://relay.example.com"],
      ["a", "30023:a695f6b60119d9521934a691347d9f78e8770b56da16bb255ee286ddf9fda919:ipsum",
            "wss://relay.nostr.org"]
    ],
    "pubkey": "…", "id": "…", "sig": "…"
  }]
← ["OK", "…", true, ""]

-- a reader fetches the article by address --
→ ["REQ", "art", {"kinds":[30023], "authors":["…"], "#d":["lorem-ipsum"]}]
← ["EVENT", "art", { "kind":30023, "tags":[["d","lorem-ipsum"], …], … }]
← ["EOSE", "art"]

8 Version History

NIP-23 changed its addressing scheme several times in its first weeks. Then it settled. Notable changes, newest first:

• 20262026-05Deprecated kind 30024 drafts in favor of NIP-37.
• 20252025-03Replies to articles must use NIP-22 kind 1111 comments.
• 20242024Renamed "parameterized replaceable event" to "addressable event"; removed a stale NIP-12 mention.
• 20232023-07Added the formatting rules: no hard line breaks, no HTML in Markdown (William Casarin).
• 20232023-05Suggested kind 30024 for encrypted drafts (Alejandro Gomez).
• 20232023-03Switched references in content to NIP-27 nostr: links.
• 20232023-02Early churn: nref became nitem, then naddr; the i tag became a; the YAML frontmatter and the NIP-01 bridge event were dropped.
• Origin2023-02-03fiatjaf published "NIP-23: long-form content."

9 See Also

• NIP-01 — addressable events, the d tag, and the a tag that this NIP builds on.
• NIP-22 — kind 1111 comments, the mandatory reply format for articles.
• NIP-19 — the naddr bech32 code that links to an article.
• NIP-21 — the nostr: URI scheme used inside the Markdown.
• NIP-27 — how to write references to notes and profiles in content.
• NIP-37 — draft events, the replacement for deprecated kind 30024.