NIP-05 Verification on Nostr with Cloudflare and a Custom Domain

This week I decided to give Nostr an honest shot and while I'm still not totally hooked, I can definitely see how this could be a really great tool if everything pans out for it. One part of the protocol I find interesting is the idea of NIPS and how the spec is set up to be expanded on as new ideas/technologies come about. NIP-01 is your basic text note. Pretty much all the Twitter clones you stumble upon while trying to figure out what the hell Nostr even is are basically just a shitload of NIP-01s being mapped through. NIP-05 is how you can "verify" who you are on these various sites. That's what we'll be setting up now.

Requirements:

Cloudflare account
Custom domain managed by Cloudflare

You don't have to purchase the domain on Cloudflare, but CF should be managing the DNS records.

There's a lot of different sites (apps) that will get you set up with public/private Nostr keys, but I'm using primal.net for this example. It should pretty much be the same wherever you get your keys.

Getting the keys

Go to https://primal.net and click the Get Started button.

Create an account

Pick an "@" username
Enter a display name
Click Next
Fill out whatever info you want, but skip the NIP-05 textfield for now

Primal will "find" some accounts for you to follow. I made the mistake of allowing this and now my feed is 99% BTC bros pissing their pants about fake internet money. Don't get me wrong, I love cryptocurrency with all my heart, but damn.

Click Finish

It'll ask you to set up your pin next. It looks like the site is using localstorage to store the public key and if that's present it'll just ask to enter your pin when you come back instead of having to enter your private key.

Set a pin

Side-note: While going through this I guess I took too long and something timed-out. When I hit submit an error saying "Invalid username" popped up. I refreshed the page and surprise! I'm now following 176 Bitcoin twats even though I hit the "Unfollow All" button. Also my username didn't show up, but I just went in to the settings and updated that, now we're all good.

Onward...

Go to Settings > Account

Copy your public key and private key somewhere safe like a secure note in a password manager. Don't lose these.

Prepare the files for NIP-05

Somewhere on your computer create a folder called .well-known Notice there is a period (.) at the start. This means it'll be a hidden folder. Make sure you're able to view hidden files.

Inside the folder make two files: nostr.json and _config.yml

The nostr.json file requires your public key in HEX format. Go to damus.io/key and put your PUBLIC key in the top textbox. The bottom textbox should populate with a hex string. Copy that hex.

Inside nostr.json put the following:

{
  "names": {
    "<the-name-you-want>": "<PUBLIC_KEY_HEX>"
  }
}

Example:

{
  "names": {
    "pywkt": "4radad637fhf......"
  }
}

Save the file.

Inside _config.yml put the following:

include:
  - .well-known

Save the file.

Now put the .well-known folder in a .zip file. You can name it whatever you want. I just named mine nostr.zip. Make sure the .well-known directory is at the top-level of the zip file.

Putting it on Cloudflare

Upload to Pages

Click the Create button

Select the Pages tab at the top of the page.

There should be two options, select the Upload Assets one.

Give it a name and click the Create Project button.

The upload section should be enabled now. Upload the zip file that has the .well-known directory.

Click the Deploy Site button.

Set custom domain

Go back to the Workers & Pages tab and select the project you just created

Click the Custom Domains tab at the top

Enter the subdomain you want your verification to be located at.

You must choose a domain you already have in Cloudflare
I'm just choosing nostr.pywkt.com

Click the Continue button.

Once it's done adding the DNS records you should be all set here.

Verification on Primal

Go back to primal.net and click your account name in the lower left corner.

Click the Edit Profile button

In the textbox that says "Verified Nostr Address (NIP-05)" enter the subdomain you just created. For me it'll be [email protected] because pywkt was the name I put in my nostr.json file and nostr.pywkt.com was the subdomain I set up on Cloudflare.

Click Save and refresh the page.

You should now see a checkmark next to your name on primal.net.

Bonus: You can also set your name to an underscore ( _ ) in your nostr.zip and then use _@<subdomain> when setting up verification and it will only show the subdomain. So instead of showing [email protected] on primal.net it'll just show up as nostr.pywkt.com. Looks a bit cleaner in my opinion.