nostr-commander-rs

TLDR: simple but convenient CLI-based Nostr client app for publishing, sending DMs, as well as following users and channels

nostr-commander is a simple terminal-based CLI client of Nostr https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nostr written in Rust. It lets you create a Nostr user, subscribe and follow posts of other users, send private (encrypted) DMs to your Nostr friends, and much more.

Please help improve the code and add features :pray: :clap: Any contribution is welcome.

Please give it a star :star: right away on Github so that other people can find the project more easily :heart:.

What's in the name?

nostr-command(lin)er. A word play.

Audience, Use cases

• for terminal lovers
• for admins, for automating tasks
• for writing shell scripts to interact with the Nostr network

Links

• https://github.com/8go/nostr-commander-rs
• https://crates.io/crates/nostr-commander
• https://docs.rs/crate/nostr-commander

Installation

• Go to Github releases
• Build from source
  • Install the Rust compiler and Cargo using rustup.rs. See https://rustup.rs/.
  • Clone this repository (this command will clone to your home directory):
    • `git clone https://github.com/8go/nostr-commander-rs.git ~/nostr-commander-rs
  • Change directory into repository directory
    • cd ~/nostr-commander-rs
  • Run the build command with the release flag
    • cargo build --release
  • Once program is compiled, the executable will be available in target/release/nostr-commander-rs.
    • ./target/release/nostr-commander-rs --version # run it and get version

Config File

You don't need to know any of this. This is just for the curious ones.

The config file looks something like this. If you want to do some quick testing, you can copy and paste this config file to get going real fast.

{ "secret_key_bech32": "nsec1yljk9us0e3whjnzysu6pqjhnw5wglkr6hvx4vj376fs0sfaxze6qvx5f5x", "public_key_bech32": "npub1af7ep6s5esrgtc2c7tlvd3v4jpna44qf6nhan8tek6h505nwrvgq38nwz6", "relays": [ "wss://nostr-pub.wellorder.net/" ], "metadata": { "name": "James Jones", "display_name": "Jim", "about": "tech nerd and nostr lover" }, "contacts": [ { "pk": "887645fef0ce0c3c1218d2f5d8e6132a19304cdc57cd20281d082f38cfea0072", "relay_url": "wss://nostr-pub.wellorder.net/", "alias": "HackerNews" }, { "pk": "6b0d4c8d9dc59e110d380b0429a02891f1341a0fa2ba1b1cf83a3db4d47e3964", "relay_url": "wss://nostr-pub.wellorder.net/", "alias": "dergigi" }, { "pk": "3235036bd0957dfb27ccda02d452d7c763be40c91a1ac082ba6983b25238388c", "relay_url": "wss://nostr-pub.wellorder.net/", "alias": "vishalxl" }, { "pk": "32e1827635450ebb3c5a7d12c1f8e7b2b514439ac10a67eef3d9fd9c5c68e245", "relay_url": "wss://nostr-pub.wellorder.net/", "alias": "jb55.com" } ], "subscribed_authors": [ "6b0d4c8d9dc59e110d380b0429a02891f1341a0fa2ba1b1cf83a3db4d47e3964", "3235036bd0957dfb27ccda02d452d7c763be40c91a1ac082ba6983b25238388c" ], "subscribed_pubkeys": [ "887645fef0ce0c3c1218d2f5d8e6132a19304cdc57cd20281d082f38cfea0072", "32e1827635450ebb3c5a7d12c1f8e7b2b514439ac10a67eef3d9fd9c5c68e245" ] }

Example Usage

$ nostr-commander-rs --create-user --name "James Jones" \ --display-name Jimmy --about "tech and pizza lover" \ --picture "https://i.imgur.com/mIcObyL.jpeg" \ --nip05 jim@nostr.example.org \ --add-relay "wss://nostr.openchain.fr" "wss://relay.damus.io" # first time only $ nostr-commander-rs --add-contact --key "887645fef0ce0c3c1218d2f5d8e6132a19304cdc57cd20281d082f38cfea0072" --alias HackerNews --relay "wss://nostr.openchain.fr/" $ nostr-commander-rs --publish "Love this protocol" $ nostr-commander-rs --dm joe "How about pizza tonight?" $ nostr-commander-rs --subscribe-author npub1xtscya34g58tk0z605fvr788k263gsu6cy9x0mhnm87echrgufzsevkk5s

Usage

``` Welcome to "nostr-commander-rs", a Nostr CLI client. ─── On the first run use --create-user to create a user. On further runs you can publish notes, send private DM messages, etc. ─── Have a look at the repo "https://github.com/8go/nostr-commander-rs/" and see if you can contribute code to improve this tool. Safe!

Usage: nostr-commander-rs [OPTIONS]

Options: --contribute Please contribute -v, --version [] Print version number or check if a newer version exists on crates.io. If used without an argument such as '--version' it will print the version number. If 'check' is added ('--version check') then the program connects to https://crates.io and gets the version number of latest stable release. There is no "calling home" on every run, only a "check crates.io" upon request. Your privacy is protected. New release is neither downloaded, nor installed. It just informs you [possible values: check] -d, --debug... Overwrite the default log level. If not used, then the default log level set with environment variable 'RUSTLOG' will be used. If used, log level will be set to 'DEBUG' and debugging information will be printed. '-d' is a shortcut for '--log-level DEBUG'. See also '--log-level'. '-d' takes precedence over '--log-level'. Additionally, have a look also at the option '--verbose' --log-level Set the log level by overwriting the default log level. If not used, then the default log level set with environment variable 'RUSTLOG' will be used. See also '--debug' and '--verbose' [default: none] [possible values: none, error, warn, info, debug, trace] --verbose... Set the verbosity level. If not used, then verbosity will be set to low. If used once, verbosity will be high. If used more than once, verbosity will be very high. Verbosity only affects the debug information. So, if '--debug' is not used then '--verbose' will be ignored -c, --credentials Path to a file containing credentials. At --create-user, information about the user, in particular its keys, will be written to a credentials file. By default, this file is "credentials.json". On further runs the credentials file is read to permit acting as this established Nostr user. If this option is provided, the provided path to a file will be used as credentials file instead of the default one [default: /home/user/.local/share/nostr-commander-rs/credentials.json] --create-user Create a new user, i.e. a new key pair. This is usually done only once at the beginning. If you ever want to wipe this user, use '--delete-user' which deletes the key pair. Use this option in combination with --name, --displayname, --about, --picture, and --nip05. Also highly recommended that you use this option together with --add-relay --delete-user Delete the current user, i.e. delete the current key pair. This will erase the key pair and other associated information like user name, display name, etc. Afterwards one can create a new user with '--create-user' --name Used this to specify an optional user name. Used together with '--create-user'. If this option is not set during '--create-user', the information will be queried via the keyboard. If you want to set it to empty and not be queried, provide an empty string '' --display-name Used this to specify an optional display name. Used together with '--create-user'. If this option is not set during '--create-user', the information will be queried via the keyboard. If you want to set it to empty and not be queried, provide an empty string '' --about Used this to specify an optional description. Used together with '--create-user'. If this option is not set during '--create-user', the information will be queried via the keyboard. If you want to set it to empty and not be queried, provide an empty string '' --picture Used this to specify an optional picture or avatar. Used together with '--create-user'. Provide a URL like 'https://example.com/avatar.png'. If this option is not set during '--create-user', the information will be queried via the keyboard. If you want to set it to empty and not be queried, provide this URL 'none:' --nip05 Used this to specify an optional nip05 name. Used together with '--create-user'. Provide a nip05 name like 'john@example.org'. If this option is not set during '--create-user', the information will be queried via the keyboard. If you want to set it to empty and not be queried, provide an empty string '' -p, --publish [...] Publish one or multiple notes --publish-pow [...] Publish one or multiple notes with proof-of-work (POW). Use also '--pow-difficulty' to specify difficulty --dm [...] Send one or multiple DMs to one given user. DM messages will be encrypted and preserve privacy. The single recipient is specified via its public key, a string in the form of 'npub1...', a Hex key, or an alias from one of your contacts. The first argument is the recipient, all further arguments are texts to be sent. E.g. '-dm 'npub1SomeStrangeNumbers "First msg" "Second msg"' or 'dm joe "How about pizza tonight?"' --add-relay [...] Add one or multiple relays. A relay is specified via a URI that looks like 'wss://some.relay.org'. You can find relays by looking at https://github.com/aljazceru/awesome-nostr#instances. Sampler relay registries are: https://nostr-registry.netlify.app/, https://nostr.info/, or https://nostr.watch/. Examples: "wss://relay.damus.io", "wss://nostr.openchain.fr". See also '--proxy' --show-metadata Display current metadata --change-metadata Modify existing metadata of the user. Use this option in combination with --name, --displayname, --about, --picture, and --nip05 --pow-difficulty Optional proof-of-work (POW) difficulty. Use with '--publish_pow' to specify difficulty. If not specified the default will be used [default: 20] --proxy Specify a proxy. Used by --add-relay --show-public-key Show public key --show-secret-key Show private, secret key. Protect this key --whoami Print the user name used by "nostr-commander-rs". One can get this information also by looking at the credentials file or by using --show-metadata -o, --output This option decides on how the output is presented. Currently offered choices are: 'text', 'json', 'json-max', and 'json-spec'. Provide one of these choices. The default is 'text'. If you want to use the default, then there is no need to use this option. If you have chosen 'text', the output will be formatted with the intention to be consumed by humans, i.e. readable text. If you have chosen 'json', the output will be formatted as JSON. The content of the JSON object matches the data provided by the nostr-sdk SDK. In some occassions the output is enhanced by having a few extra data items added for convenience. In most cases the output will be processed by other programs rather than read by humans. Option 'json-max' is practically the same as 'json', but yet another additional field is added. In most cases the output will be processed by other programs rather than read by humans. Option 'json-spec' only prints information that adheres 1-to-1 to the Nostr Specification. Currently this type is not supported. If no data is available that corresponds exactly with the Nostr Specification, no data will be printed [default: text] [possible values: text, json, json-max, json-spec] -l, --listen Listen to events, notifications and messages. This option listens to events and messages forever. To stop, type Control-C on your keyboard. You want to listen if you want to get the event ids for published notices. Subscriptions do not automatically turn listening on. If you want to listen to your subscriptions, you must use --listen --add-contact Add one or more contacts. Must be used in combination with --alias, --key, --relay. If you want to add N new contacts, use --add-contact and provide exactly N entries in each of the 3 extra arguments. E.g. --add-contact --alias jane joe --key npub1JanesPublicKey npub1JoesPublicKey --relay "wss://janes.relay.org" "wss://joes.relay.org". Aliases must be unique. Alias can be seen as a nickname --remove-contact Remove one or more contacts. Must be used in combination with --alias. For each entry in --alias the corresponding contact will be removed. E.g. --remove-contact --alias jane joe --show-contacts Display current contacts --alias [...] Provide one or multiple aliases (nicknames) for arguments --add-contact and --remove-contact --key [...] Provide one or multiple public keys for argument --add-contact. They have the form 'npub1SomeStrangeString' --relay [...] Provide one or multiple relays for argument --add-contact. They have the form 'wss://some.relay.org' --subscribe-author [...] Subscribe to one or more authors. Specify each author by its public key in form of 'npub1SomePublicKey'. Alternatively you can use the Hex form of the private key --subscribe-pubkey [...] Subscribe to one or more public keys. Specify each public key in form of 'npub1SomePublicKey'. Alternatively you can use the Hex form of the private key --limit-number Limit the number of messages to receive when subscribing. By default there is no limit (0) [default: 0] --limit-days Limit the messages received to the last N days when subscribing. By default there is no limit (0) [default: 0] --limit-hours Limit the messages received to the last N hours when subscribing. By default there is no limit (0) [default: 0] --limit-future-days Limit the messages received to the next N days when subscribing. Stop receiving N days in the future. By default there is no limit (0) [default: 0] --limit-future-hours Limit the messages received to the last N hours when subscribing. Stop receiving N hours in the future. By default there is no limit (0) [default: 0] -h, --help Print help information (use --help for more detail) ```

Other Related Projects

• Look here for an nostr awesome list.
• nostr-commander isn't quite what you wanted? Check out nostr_console.
• Not into nostr but into Matrix? Check out matrix-commander and matrix-commander-rs.
• Also matrix-nostr-bridge.