# Nelson Note

## What is Nelson
Automatic peer discovery for IOTA.

## Architecture
It runs as an independent service alongside IRI and communicates with it using IRI’s API interface.
**(figure 1: Indenpent service)**

**(figure 2: communicates with it using IRI’s API interface)**

**(figure 3: Nelson just wrap around the tangle)**

## How Nelson community works
The whole idea behind Nelson is to mimic a social structure based on trust, recommendations and personal preferences that change over time.

**Trust and recommendations:**
Each Nelson has a memory of all the members of the community it has been in contact with or that have been recommended.

**Personality and age:**
Each Nelson node has a “personality” which dictates how it treats passive (incoming) contacts. The personality changes over time. The time between personality changes is called an “epoch” and lasts about five to ten minutes.
**(figure 4: Personality and age)**

## Reference
[CarrIOTA Nelson in a nutshell
](https://medium.com/deviota/carriota-nelson-in-a-nutshell-1ee5317d8f19)