Nostr Agent Onboarding · start here · index · source: nostr-dev/docs/sources/nostr-design-principles.md · snapshot 2026-10-10

Nostr Design — Guiding Principles

Source: https://nostrdesign.org/docs/guiding-principles/ Adjacent reading: https://nostrdesign.org/docs/design-principles/starting-from-scratch/ Status: community design guide. Summary + direct quotes below.

The five principles (paraphrased)

1. User sovereignty over identity. "Users must retain control over their private keys. No client or company should lock users into their platforms."
2. User sovereignty over relays. "Users can always choose which relays to join or leave"; clients "should not force users to use a specific relay or a specific set of relays."
3. Modularity over monoliths. Build clients "that do one thing really well" rather than attempting all-inclusive applications.
4. No platform censorship. "Clients should avoid censoring anything they disagree with. Instead, they should give users the option to filter out content they do not wish to see." Filtering UX, not gatekeeping.
5. Interoperability. Different clients implementing the same NIPs should produce compatible events. Don't break the open ecosystem to ship a feature.

How this informed the synthesis

design-synthesis.md §5 ("architectural philosophy — distilled") is largely a restatement of these principles. The framing "build pieces, not platforms" in §6 is a direct riff on principle 3.

Companion: "Starting from Scratch"

The companion essay walks through what to think about when designing a new Nostr-native client. Worth reading before starting any greenfield client work. URL: https://nostrdesign.org/docs/design-principles/starting-from-scratch/