NIP-11 defines how relays publish a machine-readable description of themselves, including claimed feature support, limits, and operator metadata.

How It Works

Clients fetch relay information by making an HTTP GET request to the relay’s WebSocket URL with an Accept: application/nostr+json header. The relay returns a JSON document describing its capabilities.

Useful Fields

  • name - Human-readable relay name
  • description - What the relay is for
  • supported_nips - List of claimed NIP support
  • limitation - Restrictions like max message size, required auth, etc.
  • pubkey - Relay operator public key when provided
  • contact - Operator contact address

Trust Model

NIP-11 is self-reported metadata. It tells you what a relay says about itself, not what it has proven in live traffic. That is still useful for discovery and UX, but clients should not treat supported_nips as ground truth without testing behavior.

This distinction matters for relay selection. A relay may advertise NIP-50 search, authentication requirements, or a large message limit, but the real answer only appears once a client actually connects and exercises those code paths.

Why It Matters

  • Clients can check if a relay supports required features before connecting
  • Discovery services can index relay capabilities
  • Users can see relay policies before publishing

Recent Spec Direction

The specification has been trimmed over time. Older optional fields such as software, version, privacy policy details, and retention metadata were removed after years of weak adoption. That makes current NIP-11 documents smaller and more realistic, but it also means clients should not expect rich policy metadata from relays.

PR #2318 proposes adding an optional access_control object to the relay information document, listing the relay’s gating mode (open, invite, payment, allowlist) and any endpoint a client can use to request access. The field is advisory only, intended to let clients and directories filter gated relays out of public-discovery lists and show users upfront why a relay refuses writes.

Implementations

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