6.7 KiB
geode
A standalone Nostr relay for the JVM, built on Quartz's relay-server code (Ktor CIO). It speaks the core relay protocol plus NIP-11 (info doc), NIP-42 (AUTH), NIP-45 (COUNT), NIP-50 (full-text search), NIP-77 (Negentropy sync), NIP-86 (relay management) and NIP-FE (REQ/COUNT/EVENT over plain HTTP), stores events in SQLite (or a filesystem backend), and can mirror upstream relays strfry-router style.
geode depends only on :quartz — no Android, no Compose. amy serve (the
Amethyst CLI) embeds the same engine in-process.
Install
Pick the channel that matches how you deploy. For a real relay, the Docker
image or the .deb/.rpm + systemd are the two production paths;
Homebrew and the portable tarball are handy for local testing.
Docker (recommended for servers)
Images are published to GHCR on every release:
# Ephemeral — in-memory store, events vanish on restart:
docker run --rm -p 7447:7447 ghcr.io/vitorpamplona/geode:latest
# Persistent + configured:
docker run -d --name geode -p 7447:7447 \
-v $PWD/geode.toml:/etc/geode/geode.toml:ro \
-v geode-data:/var/lib/geode \
ghcr.io/vitorpamplona/geode:latest --config /etc/geode/geode.toml
with in_memory = false and file = "/var/lib/geode/events.db" in your
geode.toml. Pin a version (:1.16.0) instead of :latest for reproducible
deploys. To build the image yourself, from the repo root:
docker build -f geode/Dockerfile -t geode:local .
Debian/Ubuntu (.deb) and Fedora/RHEL (.rpm)
Download geode-<version>-linux-x64.deb (or .rpm) from the
release page and install
it — a minimal JRE is bundled, so no system Java is required. It installs to
/opt/geode/ with the launcher at /opt/geode/bin/geode.
sudo dpkg -i geode-1.16.0-linux-x64.deb # or: sudo rpm -i geode-1.16.0-linux-x64.rpm
To run it as a managed service, wire up the shipped systemd unit
(/opt/geode/share/geode/geode.service) — the unit file's header comment has
the copy-paste steps (create the geode user, drop your config in
/etc/geode/geode.toml, systemctl enable --now geode).
Homebrew
brew install vitorpamplona/tap/geode-relay # from the tap, once published
The formula depends on openjdk and installs the no-JRE jar bundle. Reference
formula: packaging/homebrew/geode-relay.rb.
Portable tarball (any Linux/macOS, no system Java)
Download geode-<version>-<os>-<arch>.tar.gz, unpack, and run:
tar xzf geode-1.16.0-linux-x64.tar.gz
./geode/bin/geode --config geode/share/geode/config.example.toml
The tarball bundles a jlink'd JRE plus share/geode/config.example.toml and
share/geode/geode.service.
From source
./gradlew :geode:run --args="--config /etc/geode.toml"
Configure
geode runs with zero config (binds 0.0.0.0:7447, in-memory SQLite). For
anything real, copy config.example.toml and edit it —
the sections mirror nostr-rs-relay's config.toml so existing configs port
almost verbatim. Precedence is CLI flags > TOML > built-in defaults.
geode --config /etc/geode/geode.toml
geode --help # full flag list
geode --version
Key sections: [info] (NIP-11 doc), [network] (bind + thread pools),
[database] (SQLite path/tuning), [options] (AUTH / verify / search),
[authorization] (allow/deny lists), [[mirror]] (upstream mirroring),
[http] (NIP-FE limits), [admin] (NIP-86 management), [identity] (the
relay's own key, NIP-11 self) and [membership] (NIP-43). See the example
file for every knob.
Commands over HTTP (NIP-FE)
Besides the websocket, geode answers one command per HTTP POST to the relay
URL: the body is the frame you would send on the socket, and the answer is the
socket's frames as NDJSON, streamed — no socket, no subscription left open:
curl -N --compressed -d '["REQ","q",{"kinds":[1],"limit":2}]' http://localhost:7447/
# ["EVENT","q",{"id":"…","kind":1,…}]
# ["EVENT","q",{"id":"…","kind":1,…}]
# ["EOSE","q"]
curl -d '["COUNT","c",{"kinds":[1]}]' http://localhost:7447/ # ["COUNT","c",{"count":2}]
curl -d "[\"EVENT\",$(cat signed-event.json)]" http://localhost:7447/ # ["OK","<id>",true,""]
A body that does not end on EOSE/CLOSED (REQ), COUNT/CLOSED (COUNT) or
OK (EVENT) was cut off. On an AUTH-gated relay the answer is 401 until the
request carries a NIP-98 Authorization: Nostr … header whose u is the
relay's http URL and whose payload is the body's sha256. NIP-86 admin calls
share the URL, told apart by Content-Type: application/nostr+json+rpc.
Streamed answers are gzipped for clients that send Accept-Encoding: gzip
(curl --compressed), sync-flushed so events still arrive as they are found;
[http].gzip = false turns it off. Quartz's HttpRelayClient does all of this
for clients, over OkHttp via OkHttpRelayTransport or any HttpRelayTransport.
Membership (NIP-43)
With [membership] enabled = true geode is a members-only relay: the NIP-86
pubkey allow list is the member list and gates writes. Admins mint invite codes
with createclaim (e.g. amy admin RELAY create-claim CODE); a user joins by
sending a kind 28934 request carrying one (codes stay valid until
deleteclaim) and leaves with a kind 28936. The relay signs — with its
[identity] key, advertised as NIP-11 self — and serves kind 13534 (members
and their role ids), 33534 (roles from createrole / editrole; deleterole
publishes a NIP-09 deletion) and 8000 / 8001 (member added / removed), keeping
them in step with every join, leave and admin change. Off by default, and while
off the role / claim RPCs aren't offered. Design notes:
plans/2026-09-27-nip43-membership.md.
Verbs
geode [relay] [flags] serve the relay (default)
geode import [flags] [FILE…] bulk-load NDJSON events into the store
geode export [flags] dump the store as NDJSON to stdout
import/export are geode's strfry import / strfry export — one JSON event
per line, for seeding, migrating, or backing up a relay. Both stream, so a
multi-million-event corpus round-trips in roughly constant memory.
Release process
geode ships on the same tag-driven pipeline as the rest of Amethyst: pushing a
v* tag runs .github/workflows/create-release.yml, whose build-geode job
produces the tarball + .deb/.rpm + Homebrew jvm bundle, docker-geode
builds and pushes the GHCR image, and bump-homebrew-geode-formula.yml syncs
the reference formula. Design notes:
plans/2026-07-24-geode-release.md.