macOS
Homebrewverified · 100%
brew install naklocal Homebrew formula metadata
brew / rank 4336
Install nak with Homebrew, Nix
CLI for doing all things nostr. Version 0.20.2 via Homebrew; verified 2026-07-26. Also installable with nix: nix profile install nixpkgs#nak.
install
Additional install commands
Linux
Nixverified · 92%
nix profile install nixpkgs#naknixpkgs package indexes · pkgs/by-name/na/nak/package.nix · source: api.github.com
overview
Package summary
CLI for doing all things nostr
Project links
Commands and aliases
- nak
history
Project history and usage
nak is fiatjaf's "nostr army knife": a Go command-line tool for creating, signing, publishing, querying, validating, and otherwise plumbing Nostr protocol events.
Project history
The GitHub repository was created on 2022-02-09, during the early growth period of the Nostr ecosystem. Its README presents it as a general-purpose command-line tool for Nostr work, installable via a shell installer, Go, binaries, Homebrew, Arch, and Nix.
The release stream shows active maintenance through the 0.19 and 0.20 series, including v0.20.0 on 2026-06-21. That cadence fits a protocol utility that follows NIP additions and real relay/client usage rather than a one-off demo.
Adoption history
nak's audience is narrower than mainstream networking tools, but it sits in an important niche for Nostr developers and power users. The repository metadata consulted on 2026-07-01 showed 389 GitHub stars and 46 forks, and the Homebrew page listed 673 installs over the prior 365 days.
Its adoption is tied to Nostr's preference for simple event and relay primitives: a CLI that can emit JSON, sign events, query relays, manage keys, and script relay operations is useful for debugging clients, writing shell workflows, and testing protocol behavior.
How it is used
The README examples show the core workflow: `nak event` creates a signed event; options can set secret keys, content, tags, timestamps, and relay targets; `nak req` queries relays and emits JSON that users commonly pipe to tools like `jq`.
Package nerds reach for nak when they want a reproducible Nostr command in a script: publish a test note, inspect relay responses, validate an event, talk to relay management APIs, experiment with bunker/nsec flows, or use Nostr as a transport for other artifacts.
Why package nerds care
nak is significant less as a mass-market CLI and more as a protocol workbench. It gives Nostr's event model a Unix-shaped interface, which is exactly what packagers and shell people want when a network protocol is still evolving.
Timeline
- 2022-02-09: GitHub repository created.
- 2026-06-21: v0.20.0 release published.
- 2026-07-01: Homebrew Formulae page listed version 0.20.0 and 673 installs over the prior 365 days.
Related projects
- Nostr
- nostr-tools
- noscl
Sources
security posture
No protected-tool coverage found yet
No matching local secret-handling manifest was found for nak. Nucleus package metadata is still published here so future coverage has a stable package URL.
Install behavior
- No Homebrew bottle metadata was recorded.
Recommended review
Before unattended agent use, check whether the tool reads plaintext credentials, writes remote state, publishes artifacts, or shells out to plugins.
executables
Installed executables
| Command | Kind | Exposure | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
nak | executable | indexed executable | Discovered from the local executable index. |
freshness
Version and freshness
These signals separate page generation age, package-manager activity, and upstream release comparison. Version lag is warned only when an evidence URL and comparable versions are present.
page generated2026-08-03
manager version0.20.2
manager updated2026-07-26
local dataunknown
upstreamnot available
latest detectednot detected
- okNo freshness warnings were generated.
install metadata
Package metadata
| Package key | brew:nak |
|---|---|
| Version | 0.20.2 |
| Package manager | Homebrew |
| Homepage | https://github.com/fiatjaf/nak |
| Repository | https://github.com/fiatjaf/nak |
| Last updated | 2026-07-26T19:43:12+02:00 |
| Pulse | updated |
| Bottle | not recorded |
| Service | none declared |
source database matches
Other package-manager records
Matches are pulled from external package-manager indexes and kept separate from local Automic Vault package links.
Nix95%
nak
nix profile install nixpkgs#nak- normalized package name match
- Matched by: Nak
source trail
Generated from repository data
This page is generated by av-web from the private package SQLite artifact built by scripts/generate-pkg-sqlite.py.
Combined YAML source
View the package source record on GitHub.
Used sources
- Geiger risk classifier
- cross-ecosystem install command graph
- curated package history
- external package-manager database matches
- pkg.so package database
- pkgdb category and tag curation