36 lines
1.5 KiB
Markdown
36 lines
1.5 KiB
Markdown
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# ADR-003: Nostr Relays for Node and App Discovery
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**Status**: Accepted
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**Date**: 2026-03
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## Context
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Archipelago nodes need to discover peers and community apps without a central registry. Options: custom P2P protocol, DHT, BitTorrent tracker, Nostr relays, IPFS.
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## Decision
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Use Nostr relays (NIP-78, kind 30078) for both node discovery and marketplace app manifests.
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## Consequences
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### Positive
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- **Decentralized**: Multiple independent relays; no single point of failure
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- **Existing infrastructure**: Thousands of Nostr relays already running globally
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- **Censorship-resistant**: If one relay censors, others still serve events
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- **Simple protocol**: WebSocket + JSON — easy to implement without heavy dependencies
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- **Key management**: Nostr uses secp256k1, same curve as Bitcoin — natural fit
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- **NIP-33 replaceable events**: Latest event replaces previous — clean update model
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- **Tor-compatible**: WebSocket over Tor SOCKS proxy works natively
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### Negative
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- **Relay availability varies**: Some relays may be down or rate-limited
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- **No guaranteed persistence**: Relays may prune old events
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- **Spam potential**: Open publishing means anyone can publish junk manifests
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- **Latency**: Querying multiple relays adds latency to discovery
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### Mitigation
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- Query multiple relays in parallel; deduplicate results
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- Cache results locally with 15-minute TTL
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- Use trust scoring to rank manifests (DID verification, relay consensus, federation trust)
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- Use hashtag filtering (`archipelago-marketplace`) to narrow queries
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