What about “chained events” improves anything compared to “check all my relays first, update after?”
Why would you offload *your* responsibility to a relay?
Both of them rely on your relays to detect any issues. However, check-before-write prevents damage before it occurs, while chained events only prevent damage after.
That means the app has to sign more events to reconcile instead of doing it right just from the start.
If the app discovers a really old version that diverged, it can’t do anything either except to discard it.
Compared to chained events, just being competent and reading the event before you write alleviates the problems with losing your list.
semisol
npub122…cgrkj
2026-05-28 22:43:04 UTC
Author Public Key
npub12262qa4uhw7u8gdwlgmntqtv7aye8vdcmvszkqwgs0zchel6mz7s6cgrkjPublished at
2026-05-28 22:43:04 UTCEvent JSON
{
"id": "02f952ef2ca1c1acd71f9b8d97a7a1e07cbc761b8bed6e539d4246baff547a2d",
"pubkey": "52b4a076bcbbbdc3a1aefa3735816cf74993b1b8db202b01c883c58be7fad8bd",
"created_at": 1780008184,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [],
"content": "What about “chained events” improves anything compared to “check all my relays first, update after?”\n\nWhy would you offload *your* responsibility to a relay?\n\nBoth of them rely on your relays to detect any issues. However, check-before-write prevents damage before it occurs, while chained events only prevent damage after.\n\nThat means the app has to sign more events to reconcile instead of doing it right just from the start.\n\nIf the app discovers a really old version that diverged, it can’t do anything either except to discard it.\n\nCompared to chained events, just being competent and reading the event before you write alleviates the problems with losing your list.",
"sig": "60fd2eb725295fa9aa03e5ab1d317cc09626b18bf65d61cb96f6acf5a9aa3eaba1856f82d1da5b8b4bc13ea7a4deb1e2e66f80d27a93dd746978ff38621698fb"
}