Relays

Relays are servers on the Nostr network that store and distribute your messages, streams, and profile data. Anyone can run one, and there are hundreds of public relays available.

When you publish a Nostr event — a chat message, a live event, a profile change — Shosho sends it to a set of relays. Other clients connect to relays to fetch events. Relays are how Nostr websites and apps find your live streams and other content.

You publish to relays you choose

Your outbox — the set of relays you publish to — is something you control. Shosho will publish your profile, live streams, clips, notes and more to whatever relays you set.

Anyone can read

Relays are mostly open: anyone connected to a relay can read what’s there. So anything you publish to Nostr should be considered public.

Sensible defaults

If you are a new user setting up a new profile with Shosho we will give you sensible defaults so that you do not need to think too hard about relays.

Run your own relay

If you want to run your own relay, you can. There are many Nostr relay softwares to choose from, many are very simple to run. Running your own relay allows your to save all of your Nostr content – your profile, live streams, clips, notes and more – to a server you control.

When you might want to manage relays

You want your content stored on relays you trust.
You are running your own relay and you want to add it to Shosho.
You want to read from a specific relay (for example, a relay for your specific community).
You want fewer or more relays for performance reasons.

Where to manage them in Shosho

In the Shosho website or app:

Open the menu and press Nostr Relays.
To add a relay, press Add Relay, enter the WebSocket URL (e.g. wss://relay.shosho.live), and pick whether it’s Read, Write, or both.
To remove a relay, press the … menu next to it and choose Delete.