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NIP: Custom Event Kinds

Event Kinds Overview

Ditto Kinds

Kind Name Description
36767 Theme Definition Shareable, named custom UI theme
16767 Active Profile Theme The user's currently active theme (one per user)
16769 Profile Tabs The user's custom profile page tabs (one per user)

Community Kinds

These event kinds were created by community contributors and are supported by Ditto. Full specifications are maintained by their respective authors.

Kind Name Description Spec
3367 Color Moment Color palette post expressing a mood NIP
4223 Weather Reading Sensor readings from a weather station Draft NIP
7516 Found Log Log entry recording a user finding a geocache NIP-GC
8211 Encrypted Letter Encrypted personal letter with visual stationery NIP
11125 Blobbonaut Profile Owner profile with coins, achievements, and inventory NIP-BB
14919 Blobbi Interaction Individual pet interaction (feed, play, clean, etc.) NIP-BB
14920 Blobbi Breeding Breeding event between two adult Blobbis NIP-BB
14921 Blobbi Record Immutable lifecycle record (birth, evolution, adoption) NIP-BB
16158 Weather Station Weather station metadata (location, sensors, connectivity) Draft NIP
31124 Blobbi Pet State Current state of a virtual Blobbi pet (addressable) NIP-BB
37516 Geocache Geocache listing for real-world treasure hunting NIP-GC

Kind 36767: Theme Definition

Summary

Addressable event kind for publishing shareable custom UI themes. A single user may publish multiple themes, each identified by a unique d tag.

A theme consists of colors, optional fonts, and an optional background. Colors are stored in c tags, fonts in f tags, and background in a bg tag.

Event Structure

{
  "kind": 36767,
  "content": "",
  "tags": [
    ["d", "mk-dark-theme"],
    ["c", "#1a1a2e", "background"],
    ["c", "#e0e0e0", "text"],
    ["c", "#6c3ce0", "primary"],
    ["f", "Inter", "https://example.com/inter.woff2", "body"],
    ["f", "Playfair Display", "https://example.com/playfair.woff2", "title"],
    ["bg", "url https://example.com/bg.jpg", "mode cover", "m image/jpeg", "dim 1920x1080"],
    ["title", "MK Dark Theme"],
    ["alt", "Custom theme: MK Dark Theme"]
  ]
}

Content

The content field is unused and MUST be an empty string ("").

Tags

Tag Required Description
d Yes Unique identifier (slug) for this theme, e.g. "mk-dark-theme"
c Yes (×3) Hex color with marker. See Color Tags.
f No Font declaration. See Font Tag.
bg No Background media. See Background Tag.
title Yes Human-readable theme name
alt Yes NIP-31 human-readable fallback

Multiple Themes Per User

Since kind 36767 is addressable, a user can publish multiple themes by using different d tag values. Publishing a new event with the same d tag replaces the previous version (this is how editing works).

Kind 16767: Active Profile Theme

Summary

Replaceable event that represents the user's currently active profile theme. Only one per user. When other users visit a profile, they query this kind to determine what theme to display.

Event Structure

{
  "kind": 16767,
  "content": "",
  "tags": [
    ["c", "#1a1a2e", "background"],
    ["c", "#e0e0e0", "text"],
    ["c", "#6c3ce0", "primary"],
    ["f", "Inter", "https://example.com/inter.woff2", "body"],
    ["f", "Playfair Display", "https://example.com/playfair.woff2", "title"],
    ["bg", "url https://example.com/bg.jpg", "mode cover", "m image/jpeg"],
    ["title", "MK Dark Theme"],
    ["alt", "Active profile theme"]
  ]
}

Content

The content field is unused and MUST be an empty string ("").

Tags

Tag Required Description
c Yes (×3) Hex color with marker. See Color Tags.
f No Font declaration. See Font Tag.
bg No Background media. See Background Tag.
title No Human-readable name for the theme
alt Yes NIP-31 human-readable fallback

Client Behavior

  • When visiting a profile, clients query { kinds: [16767], authors: [pubkey], limit: 1 } to get the active theme.
  • Clients read the c tags to extract colors, f tags for fonts, and bg tag for the background.
  • Setting a new active theme publishes a new kind 16767 event (replacing the old one).
  • To remove the active theme, publish a kind 5 deletion event targeting kind 16767.

Shared Tag Definitions

The following tag definitions apply to both kind 36767 and kind 16767.

Color Tags

Format: ["c", "#rrggbb", "<marker>"]

Index Required Description
0 Yes Tag name: "c"
1 Yes Lowercase 6-digit hex color code including the # sign (e.g. "#ff0000")
2 Yes Color role marker: one of "primary", "text", or "background"
  • All three markers ("primary", "text", "background") MUST be present.
  • Only one c tag per marker is allowed.

Font Tag

Format: ["f", "<family>", "<url>", "<role>"]

Index Required Description
0 Yes Tag name: "f"
1 Yes CSS font-family name (e.g. "Inter")
2 Yes Direct URL to a font file (.woff2, .ttf, .otf)
3 Yes Font role: "body" or "title"

Roles:

Role Applies to
"body" All text globally (body, headings, UI elements)
"title" The user's profile display name

Rules:

  • The f tag is optional on the event.
  • At most one f tag per role is allowed (i.e. one body font and one title font).
  • The "body" font tag MUST be ordered before the "title" font tag. This ensures backward-compatible clients that only read the first f tag will pick up the body font.
  • If the URL fails to load, the client SHOULD fall back to a default font gracefully.
  • Clients that do not recognize a role SHOULD ignore that f tag.
  • Legacy events with an f tag that has no role marker (only 3 elements) SHOULD be treated as "body".
  • Variable font files (covering multiple weights in a single file) are preferred.

Background Tag

The bg tag uses an imeta-style variadic format where each entry (after the tag name) is a space-delimited key/value pair.

Format: ["bg", "url <url>", "mode <mode>", "m <mime-type>", ...]

Key Required Description
url Yes URL to an image or video file
mode Yes Display mode: "cover" or "tile"
m Yes MIME type (e.g. "image/jpeg", "image/png", "video/mp4")
dim No Dimensions in pixels: "<width>x<height>" (e.g. "1920x1080")
blurhash No Blurhash placeholder string for progressive loading
  • At most one bg tag is allowed per event.
  • Clients MAY choose not to render video backgrounds for performance or bandwidth reasons.
  • Unknown keys SHOULD be ignored for forward compatibility.

Kind 16769: Profile Tabs

Summary

Replaceable event kind for publishing a user's custom profile page tabs. Exactly one event per user (no d tag). Each tab defines a Nostr filter (NIP-01) that clients execute to populate the tab's content.

Visitors who load a profile fetch this event to display the custom tabs alongside the standard Posts / Media / Likes / Wall tabs.

Event Structure

{
  "kind": 16769,
  "content": "",
  "tags": [
    ["var", "$follows", "p", "a:3:$me:"],
    ["tab", "Bitcoin Posts", "{\"kinds\":[1],\"authors\":[\"$me\"],\"search\":\"bitcoin\"}"],
    ["tab", "Feed", "{\"kinds\":[1,6],\"authors\":[\"$follows\"],\"limit\":40}"],
    ["alt", "Custom profile tabs"]
  ]
}

Content

The content field is unused and MUST be an empty string ("").

Tags

Tag Format Description
tab ["tab", "<label>", "<filterJSON>"] One tag per custom tab. Order defines display order.
var ["var", "<$name>", "<tag>", "<pointer>"] Variable definition. See Variable Tags.
alt ["alt", "Custom profile tabs"] NIP-31 human-readable fallback. Required.

Tab Filter JSON

The third element of each tab tag is a JSON-encoded NIP-01 filter object, optionally extended with the NIP-50 search field. Variable placeholders (strings starting with $) may appear wherever a string value is expected.

{
  "kinds": [1],
  "authors": ["$me"],
  "search": "bitcoin",
  "limit": 20
}

Supported filter fields: ids, authors, kinds, #<tag> (e.g. #t, #e, #p), since, until, limit, search.

Variable Tags

Variable tags define named placeholders that are resolved before the filter is executed. Each var tag extracts tag values from a referenced Nostr event.

Format: ["var", "$name", "<tag-to-extract>", "<event-pointer>"]

Index Description
0 Tag name: "var"
1 Variable name, starting with $ (e.g. "$follows")
2 Tag name to extract values from in the referenced event (e.g. "p")
3 Event pointer: e:<event-id> for a specific event, or a:<kind>:<pubkey>:<d-tag> for an addressable/replaceable event coordinate. Variables like $me may appear in the pubkey position.

Example — extract follow list pubkeys:

["var", "$follows", "p", "a:3:$me:"]

This means: fetch the kind 3 event authored by $me, extract all p tag values, and bind them to $follows.

Reserved Variable: $me

The $me variable is the only runtime-provided variable. It resolves to the profile owner's pubkey (the author of the kind 16769 event). It does not require a var tag definition.

Variable Resolution

When a variable appears in a filter field that expects an array (e.g. authors, ids, #p), the variable is expanded in-place (spliced into the array). Literal values may be mixed with variables.

["tab", "Mixed", "{\"authors\":[\"$follows\",\"abc123...\"],\"kinds\":[1]}"]

After resolution (assuming $follows = ["pk1", "pk2"]):

{"authors": ["pk1", "pk2", "abc123..."], "kinds": [1]}

Behavior

  • To add or update tabs: publish a new kind 16769 event with all current tab and var tags.
  • To clear all tabs: publish a kind 16769 event with no tab tags (only alt).
  • Clients MUST filter by authors: [pubkey] when querying to prevent spoofing.
  • var tags are shared across all tab tags in the same event.

Kind 0 Extension: Avatar Shape

Summary

An optional shape property on kind 0 (profile metadata) that controls how the user's avatar is masked/clipped when displayed. The value is an emoji character whose silhouette is used as a mask over the avatar image. When absent, the avatar renders as the standard circle.

Metadata Field

The shape field is added to the JSON content of a kind 0 event alongside standard fields like name, picture, etc. Its value is a single emoji character (including multi-codepoint emoji such as flags, ZWJ sequences, and skin-tone variants).

{
  "kind": 0,
  "content": "{\"name\":\"Luna\",\"picture\":\"https://example.com/luna.jpg\",\"shape\":\"🌙\"}"
}

Client Behavior

  • When shape is absent, clients SHOULD render the avatar as a circle (the current universal default).
  • When shape is a valid emoji, clients SHOULD use the emoji's silhouette as an alpha mask over the avatar image. The specific rendering technique is platform-dependent (see below).
  • When shape is set to an unrecognized or invalid value, clients MUST fall back to a circle. This ensures forward compatibility.
  • The shape field is purely cosmetic and has no protocol-level significance.
  • Clients MAY choose not to support this extension, in which case avatars render as circles as usual.

Community NIP Specifications

The following specifications are maintained by their respective authors. Ditto implements these kinds but does not own the specs. See each link for the full event structure, tags, and client behavior.

Color Moments (Kind 3367)

Author: Chad Curtis Spec: https://gitlab.com/chad.curtis/espy/-/blob/main/NIP.md App: https://espy.you

Color palette posts capturing 3-6 colors from a beautiful moment, optionally accompanied by an emoji and layout preference. Supports horizontal, vertical, grid, star, checkerboard, and diagonal stripe layouts. A form of pre-verbal visual communication through color and emotion.

Geocaching (Kinds 37516, 7516)

Author: Chad Curtis Spec: https://gitlab.com/chad.curtis/treasures/-/blob/main/NIP-GC.md App: https://treasures.to

NIP-GC defines geocaching on Nostr. Kind 37516 (addressable) is a geocache listing with location (geohash), difficulty/terrain scores, size, and type. Kind 7516 is a found log recording a successful visit. The spec also covers comment logs (kind 1111 via NIP-22), verified finds with cryptographic proof (kind 7517), and cache retirement.

Personal Letters (Kind 8211)

Author: Chad Curtis Spec: https://gitlab.com/chad.curtis/lief/-/blob/main/NIP.md App: https://lief.to

NIP-44 encrypted personal letters with visual stationery, hand-drawn stickers, decorative frames, and custom fonts. Letters render as 5:4 landscape postcards. The privacy model is intentionally postcard-like: sender/recipient metadata is visible, content is encrypted.

Weather Station (Kinds 4223, 16158)

Author: Sam Thomson Spec: nostr-protocol/nips#2163 App: https://weather.shakespeare.wtf Firmware: https://github.com/samthomson/weather-station

Kind 16158 (replaceable) describes a weather station's configuration: name, geohash location, elevation, power source, connectivity, and sensor inventory. Kind 4223 (regular) carries individual sensor readings as 3-parameter tags [sensor_type, value, model], enabling historical queries and cross-station comparison. Each station has its own keypair.

Blobbi Virtual Pet (Kinds 31124, 14919, 14920, 14921, 11125)

Author: Danifra Spec: https://github.com/Danidfra/nostr-pet/blob/production/NIP.md App: https://nostr-pet.vercel.app See also: Blobbi tag schema (Ditto-specific integration details)

NIP-BB defines a virtual pet lifecycle on Nostr. Kind 31124 (addressable) holds the current pet state across three stages (egg, baby, adult) with stats, appearance, and personality traits. Kind 14919 logs individual interactions, kind 14920 records breeding events, kind 14921 stores immutable lifecycle records, and kind 11125 (replaceable) holds the owner's profile with coins, achievements, and inventory.