Nostr Publishing

Publishing Nostr Events

Use this skill when a feature needs to publish events — notes, reactions, list updates, profile edits, addressable content, etc. Covers the useNostrPublish hook, the correct read-modify-write pattern for replaceable/addressable lists, and d-tag collision prevention.

The useNostrPublish Hook

useNostrPublish publishes an event through the app's connection pool and auto-adds a client tag. Always guard calls with useCurrentUser — publishing requires a signer.

import { useCurrentUser } from '@/hooks/useCurrentUser';
import { useNostrPublish } from '@/hooks/useNostrPublish';

export function PostForm() {
  const { user } = useCurrentUser();
  const { mutate: createEvent } = useNostrPublish();

  if (!user) return <span>You must be logged in to post.</span>;

  return (
    <button => createEvent({ kind: 1, content: 'hello' })}>
      Post
    </button>
  );
}

Prefer mutateAsync over mutate when the caller needs to await the published event (e.g. to navigate to the new event's page, or to chain another publish).

Mutating Replaceable and Addressable Events (CRITICAL)

Replaceable (kind 10000-19999) and addressable (kind 30000-39999) events require a read-modify-write cycle: fetch the current event, modify its tags, publish a new version. Never read from the TanStack Query cache before mutating — the cache can be stale from another device or a rapid prior operation, and republishing stale data silently drops the user's data.

Use fetchFreshEvent() from src/lib/fetchFreshEvent.ts inside every mutation, and always pass the fetched event as prev so useNostrPublish can preserve published_at:

import { fetchFreshEvent } from '@/lib/fetchFreshEvent';

// Inside a mutation function:
const prev = await fetchFreshEvent(nostr, {
  kinds: [10003],
  authors: [user.pubkey],
});
const currentTags = prev?.tags ?? [];
// ...modify tags...
await publishEvent({
  kind: 10003,
  content: prev?.content ?? '',
  tags: newTags,
  prev: prev ?? undefined,
});

This applies to all list-type hooks (bookmarks, pins, interests, follow sets, badges, etc.). See useFollowActions and useMuteList for complete examples.

The prev Property on Event Templates

useNostrPublish accepts an optional prev property on the event template — the previous version of the event being replaced. The hook uses it to manage the published_at tag (NIP-24) automatically:

• First publish (no prev) — published_at is set equal to created_at.
• Update (prev provided) — published_at is preserved from the old event.
• Old event lacks published_at — nothing is fabricated.
• Caller already set published_at in tags — left alone.

Convention: name the local variable prev at the call site (not freshEvent or latestEvent) so it reads naturally when passed to publishEvent:

const prev = await fetchFreshEvent(nostr, { kinds: [3], authors: [user.pubkey] });
// ...
await publishEvent({ kind: 3, content: prev?.content ?? '', tags: newTags, prev: prev ?? undefined });

prev is stripped from the template before signing — it never appears in the published Nostr event.

D-Tag Collision Prevention for Addressable Events

Addressable events (kind 30000-39999) are identified by pubkey + kind + d-tag. Publishing an event with the same d-tag as an existing one silently replaces it. This is by design for intentional updates (edit flows), but dangerous when creating new content with user-derived d-tags (slugs from titles, user-entered identifiers, etc.).

When to check for collisions

• Must check when the d-tag is derived from user input (slugified titles, user-entered identifiers, etc.).
• No check needed when the d-tag is a crypto.randomUUID(), a canonical format with an embedded pubkey prefix, or intentionally the same as an existing event (edit/update flows).

Implementation pattern

Before publishing a new addressable event with a user-derived d-tag, query for an existing event with that d-tag. If one exists, block the publish and tell the user to change the identifier.

// Before publishing a new addressable event:
const slug = slugify(title, { lower: true, strict: true });

const existing = await nostr.query([
  { kinds: [30023], authors: [user.pubkey], '#d': [slug], limit: 1 },
]);

if (existing.length > 0) {
  toast({
    title: 'Slug already in use',
    description: 'Change the slug or edit the existing item.',
    variant: 'destructive',
  });
  return;
}

// Safe to publish
publishEvent({ kind: 30023, content, tags: [['d', slug], ...otherTags] });

Skip the check in edit mode — when the user explicitly loaded an existing event to update, overwriting is the intended behavior.

Prefer UUID or canonical formats when the d-tag doesn't need to be human-readable. Only use slugified input when the d-tag will appear in URLs or needs to be meaningful to users, and always add a collision check.