Common Lisp Nostr Relay

A lightweight Nostr relay implementation in Common Lisp.

NIP Support

This relay supports the following Nostr Implementation Possibilities (NIPs):

• NIP-01: Basic protocol flow
• NIP-02: Contact List and Petnames
• NIP-09: Event deletion (kind 5)
• NIP-11: Relay Information Document
• NIP-12: Generic tag queries (#e, #p, etc)
• NIP-15: Marketplace
• NIP-16: Event Treatment (ephemeral events 20000-29999)
• NIP-20: Command results (OK messages)
• NIP-22: Event created_at limits (timestamp validation)
• NIP-26: Delegated Event Signing
• NIP-28: Public Chat
• NIP-33: Parameterized Replaceable Events (kind 30000-39999)
• NIP-40: Expiration Timestamp
• NIP-70: Protected Events (rejects events with "-" tag)

Usage

sbcl --non-interactive --load nostr-relay.lisp --eval '(nostr-relay:main)'

Or use the provided script:

./run.sh

The relay will start on ws://localhost:5000 by default.

Docker

Build and run with Docker:

docker build -t nostr-relay .
docker run -p 5000:5000 -e DATABASE_URL='postgres://user:pass@host:5432/dbname' nostr-relay

Installation

git clone <repository-url>
cd lisp-nostr-relay

Requirements

• SBCL (Steel Bank Common Lisp)
• Quicklisp
• PostgreSQL
• libsecp256k1

Required Lisp libraries (automatically loaded via Quicklisp):

• websocket-driver
• clack
• clack-handler-hunchentoot
• jonathan
• postmodern
• ironclad
• babel
• alexandria
• cl-secp256k1 (install manually: ~/quicklisp/local-projects/)

Notes

Signature Verification: Currently, Schnorr signature verification is not fully implemented. The relay accepts events based on format validation only. To enable full signature verification, install libsecp256k1 and cl-secp256k1.

Configuration

Set the following environment variables:

• DATABASE_URL: PostgreSQL connection string (e.g., postgres://user:pass@host:5432/dbname)
• Or use individual variables: DB_NAME, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD, DB_HOST

License

MIT License

Author

Yasuhiro Matsumoto (a.k.a. mattn)