Tarot Card Readings

Published Jul 2, 2026

kind 2256 · Tarot Card Reading

NIP-TR

Tarot Readings

draft optional

This NIP defines kind:2256 events for recording tarot readings on Nostr.

Model

The tarot deck is a closed, universally known set of exactly 78 cards. A reading is an ordered draw from that deck, without replacement, where each drawn card is either upright or reversed.

This maps directly onto Nostr primitives:

The card set is a fixed vocabulary of 78 identifiers. Because the vocabulary is closed, card identifiers are placed in the indexed value of a single-letter tag, making every reading queryable by card at the relay level with no vocabulary fragmentation.
The draw is ordered, and tags in a Nostr event are an ordered array in the signed payload. Position is therefore positional: the n-th c tag is the n-th card drawn. No position labels are carried in the data.
The draw is without replacement: a card identifier appears at most once per event.
The interpretation is prose and lives in content.

Kind 2256 is a regular event: a reading is an immutable historical record — the cards fell how they fell. The kind number is the deck itself: 22 major arcana, 56 minor.

Tarot Reading Event (Kind 2256)

{
  "kind": 2256,
  "content": "<interpretation>",
  "tags": [
    ["c", "<card-identifier>", "<orientation>"],
    ["c", "<card-identifier>", "<orientation>"],
    ["c", "<card-identifier>", "<orientation>"],
    ["s", "<spread-name>"],
    ["alt", "<human-readable summary>"]
  ]
}

Content

Freeform prose: the interpretation, the question asked, whatever the reader wants to say. MAY contain URLs, hashtags, and nostr: URIs per NIP-27. MAY be empty — the draw alone is a valid reading.

Clients MUST NOT need to parse content to reconstruct the draw.

Card Tag

["c", "<card-identifier>", "<orientation>"]

card-identifier (required) - one of the 78 identifiers below
orientation (optional) - reversed, or upright (the default when omitted or empty)

Card Identifiers

The complete vocabulary is 78 kebab-case identifiers derived from the cards' traditional English names.

Major arcana (22):

the-fool          the-magician      the-high-priestess  the-empress
the-emperor       the-hierophant    the-lovers          the-chariot
strength          the-hermit        wheel-of-fortune    justice
the-hanged-man    death             temperance          the-devil
the-tower         the-star          the-moon            the-sun
judgement         the-world

Minor arcana (56): <rank>-of-<suit>, where rank ∈ ace two three four five six seven eight nine ten page knight queen king and suit ∈ wands cups swords pentacles. E.g. ace-of-wands, queen-of-cups.

Identifiers are name-based rather than number-based because traditions disagree on numbering (Strength/Justice are VIII/XI in Rider–Waite–Smith and XI/VIII in Marseille) but not on names. No deck designation is needed for standard tarot: art varies, the 78 cards do not. Non-standard decks (Thoth's renames, oracle decks) are outside this vocabulary; events using them SHOULD add a deck tag naming the deck and use that deck's card names as identifiers, and clients MAY map well-known aliases (e.g. Thoth adjustment → justice) for display.

Relation to External Vocabularies

No external system provides identifiers this NIP could adopt directly, which is why it defines its own:

Wikidata has stable, language-independent items for all 78 cards (majors as part of Q11158357, minors as part of Q2331362) and is the closest thing to a canonical identity model. But Q-IDs are opaque (Q2418750 for The Tower), and its minor-arcana labels follow the Italian/Marseille convention (jack of coins) rather than the Rider–Waite–Smith convention (page of pentacles) that dominates English tarot practice and this vocabulary.
Wikimedia Commons file names for the public domain RWS scans use RWS numbering for majors (RWS_Tarot_16_Tower.jpg) and abbreviated numbered suits for minors (Cups13.jpg for the queen of cups).

This NIP's identifiers are the RWS English card names, kebab-cased — the names practitioners actually use. Mappings to Q-IDs, Commons files, or any other system are one-time lookup tables clients may ship; none derive mechanically from another.

Spread Tag

The order of c tags is the canonical record. A spread is a conventional naming of that order:

["s", "<spread-name>"]

At most one s tag. As a single-letter tag it is relay-indexed, so readings are queryable by spread: {"#s": ["celtic-cross"]}.

Well-known spread names, whose position semantics are established tarot tradition:

Spread	Cards	Positions (in draw order)
`single`	1	the card
`past-present-future`	3	past, present, future
`situation-action-outcome`	3	situation, action, outcome
`mind-body-spirit`	3	mind, body, spirit
`horseshoe`	7	past, present, hidden influences, obstacles, attitudes, advice, outcome
`celtic-cross`	10	present, challenge, foundation, past, crown, future, self, environment, hopes and fears, outcome

Clients that recognize the spread name render its layout; all others fall back to an ordered row. Unknown names are tolerated, not rejected. The event remains fully interpretable with no s tag at all: it is a draw of n cards, in order.

Querent Tag

Standard NIP-01 p tag, marking who the reading is for when the author read for someone else:

["p", "<32-byte hex pubkey>", "<relay-hint>"]

The relay hint is optional. The author is always the reader; absent a p tag, the author is also the querent.

Topic Tags

Standard hashtags per NIP-24: lowercase, one word per tag, multiple allowed:

["t", "daily"]
["t", "weekly"]

Used for cadence and theme, and for relay-level feed filtering ({"#t": ["daily"]}).

Alt Tag

Standard NIP-31 fallback for clients that don't render kind 2256:

["alt", "Tarot reading: The Fool, The Hermit reversed, The Tower (past/present/future)"]

Media Tags

No artwork is required to render a reading. The card identifiers alone are sufficient: Pamela Colman Smith's 1909 illustrations for the Rider–Waite–Smith deck are in the public domain (in the US since publication era, and in life+70 jurisdictions since 2022), so complete free art for the entire 78-card vocabulary exists — Wikimedia Commons hosts the full set, among others. Note that no external naming scheme derives mechanically from these identifiers (the Commons scans, for instance, are numbered by RWS convention — RWS_Tarot_08_Strength.jpg, Cups13.jpg); clients are expected to ship their own identifier→image mapping, whatever art they use.

imeta tags per NIP-92 are optional and serve two purposes:

Reading image — an imeta with no card field is a rendering of the whole reading, for media-oriented clients:

["imeta", "url <image-url>", "m image/png", "alt <description>"]

Card art — an imeta with a card <card-identifier> field supplies artwork for one specific card, for clients using custom (non-RWS) art. The identifier MUST match one of the event's c tags:

["imeta", "url https://blossom.example.com/tower-custom.png", "m image/png", "card the-tower", "alt The Tower, custom art"]

Clients that display card art SHOULD prefer a matching card imeta when present and fall back to their own imagery otherwise. Card-art imeta depicts the upright card; reversal is a display rotation, not a separate image.

Client Behavior

Publishing

A draw is a local act; publishing is explicit. Clients SHOULD create events — whether a kind 2256 reading or a fallback kind 1 note — only on deliberate user action, never automatically when cards are drawn.

Querying

A user's readings: {"kinds": [2256], "authors": ["<pubkey>"]}
Latest daily reading: {"kinds": [2256], "authors": ["<pubkey>"], "#t": ["daily"], "limit": 1}
Every reading containing a card: {"kinds": [2256], "#c": ["the-tower"]}
Readings using a spread: {"kinds": [2256], "#s": ["celtic-cross"]}
Readings for a querent: {"kinds": [2256], "#p": ["<pubkey>"]}

Validation

A kind 2256 event is invalid when it has no c tags, more than 78, or a repeated card identifier. Unknown orientations, spread names, and out-of-vocabulary card identifiers SHOULD be tolerated for forward compatibility, not rejected.

Display

Reversed cards SHOULD be visually distinct (inverted, badged, or labeled)
The author is the reader; a p-tagged pubkey is the querent
Clients MAY additionally publish a kind 1 note with a nostr:nevent... URI pointing at the reading for reach into note-only clients; the kind 2256 event remains the canonical record

Social Layer

Standard mechanisms apply with no special handling:

Comments: NIP-22 kind 1111, rooted with ["E", "<reading-id>"], ["K", "2256"], ["P", "<author>"]
Reactions: NIP-25 kind 7 with ["k", "2256"]
Zaps: NIP-57

Examples

Three-Card Daily Reading

{
  "kind": 2256,
  "content": "A leap already taken, a lantern turned inward and ignored, and a reckoning on the horizon. Slow down before the universe slows you down.",
  "tags": [
    ["c", "the-fool"],
    ["c", "the-hermit", "reversed"],
    ["c", "the-tower"],
    ["s", "past-present-future"],
    ["t", "daily"],
    ["imeta",
      "url https://blossom.example.com/abc123.png",
      "m image/png",
      "alt Three tarot cards: The Fool, The Hermit reversed, The Tower"
    ],
    ["alt", "Tarot reading: The Fool, The Hermit reversed, The Tower (past/present/future)"]
  ]
}

Single Card

{
  "kind": 2256,
  "content": "",
  "tags": [
    ["c", "queen-of-cups"],
    ["alt", "Tarot card: Queen of Cups"]
  ]
}

Reading with Card Art

One imeta per card, each carrying a card field matching a c tag. Here the art is the public domain 1909 Rider–Waite–Smith scans hosted on Wikimedia Commons — though a client shipping its own RWS art would omit these tags entirely, since the identifiers alone suffice.

{
  "kind": 2256,
  "content": "A leap already taken, a lantern turned inward and ignored, and a reckoning on the horizon.",
  "tags": [
    ["c", "the-fool"],
    ["c", "the-hermit", "reversed"],
    ["c", "the-tower"],
    ["s", "past-present-future"],
    ["imeta",
      "url https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/RWS_Tarot_00_Fool.jpg",
      "m image/jpeg",
      "card the-fool",
      "alt The Fool, Rider-Waite-Smith"
    ],
    ["imeta",
      "url https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/RWS_Tarot_09_Hermit.jpg",
      "m image/jpeg",
      "card the-hermit",
      "alt The Hermit, Rider-Waite-Smith"
    ],
    ["imeta",
      "url https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/RWS_Tarot_16_Tower.jpg",
      "m image/jpeg",
      "card the-tower",
      "alt The Tower, Rider-Waite-Smith"
    ],
    ["alt", "Tarot reading: The Fool, The Hermit reversed, The Tower (past/present/future)"]
  ]
}

Note The Hermit's art is upright even though the draw is reversed: reversal is a display rotation.

Celtic Cross

Ten c tags in draw order fill the ten positions (present, challenge, foundation, past, crown, future, self, environment, hopes and fears, outcome).

{
  "kind": 2256,
  "content": "The Devil crossed by Temperance: the appetite is real but so is the hand steadying it. The past (Ten of Swords) is done — fully done. Watch the crown: Wheel of Fortune says the turn has already begun...",
  "tags": [
    ["c", "the-devil"],
    ["c", "temperance"],
    ["c", "three-of-cups", "reversed"],
    ["c", "ten-of-swords"],
    ["c", "wheel-of-fortune"],
    ["c", "eight-of-pentacles"],
    ["c", "the-hermit"],
    ["c", "king-of-swords", "reversed"],
    ["c", "the-star"],
    ["c", "six-of-wands"],
    ["s", "celtic-cross"],
    ["alt", "Celtic cross tarot reading: The Devil, Temperance, Three of Cups reversed, Ten of Swords, Wheel of Fortune, Eight of Pentacles, The Hermit, King of Swords reversed, The Star, Six of Wands"]
  ]
}

Horseshoe

A traditional seven-card spread. Seven c tags in draw order fill the seven positions.

{
  "kind": 2256,
  "content": "The obstacle position holds the Moon — the problem is not the situation but how little of it you can currently see. The advice card, Page of Swords, says ask the blunt question you've been avoiding.",
  "tags": [
    ["c", "six-of-cups"],
    ["c", "the-magician"],
    ["c", "seven-of-cups", "reversed"],
    ["c", "the-moon"],
    ["c", "knight-of-pentacles"],
    ["c", "page-of-swords"],
    ["c", "ten-of-cups"],
    ["s", "horseshoe"],
    ["alt", "Horseshoe tarot reading: Six of Cups, The Magician, Seven of Cups reversed, The Moon, Knight of Pentacles, Page of Swords, Ten of Cups"]
  ]
}