Create a collection

Who this is for. Anyone launching a set of inscriptions that belong together.

Goal. A collection whose membership is provable from the chain rather than from a list someone maintains.

The three approaches

Inscribe offers three sub-tabs in the Inscribe workspace, and they solve different problems. Pick before you start; converting later means inscribing again.

Approach	Sub-tab	What it gives you	Limit
Gallery	Gallery	A set defined by a JSON manifest you upload	500 items, manifest file up to 512 KB
Parent and child	Parent/Child	Each item provably inscribed under a parent you own, verified on chain	One parent per child
Delegate	Delegate	Many inscriptions pointing at one piece of content, so the bytes are stored once	Same as an ordinary inscription

Gallery is the straightforward route for a numbered set.

Parent and child is the strongest claim: the child’s provenance comes from spending the parent, so nobody can add themselves to your collection. It costs more and needs a second signature.

Delegate is the cheap route for many items sharing one artwork. It does not store the content again, so a 1,000-item delegate set costs a fraction of 1,000 full inscriptions.

Prerequisites

Requirement	Detail
Chain and network	Bitcoin mainnet
Workspace	Inscribe at `/inscribe`
Wallet	Universe, UniSat, Xverse, OKX or Wizz
For parent and child	You must already own the parent inscription
Reversible?	No

Parent and child: what is different

This is the only common flow that asks for two signatures, and the reason is worth understanding.

The reveal transaction has to spend the parent inscription you already own. Only your wallet can authorise that, so the order pauses in a waiting-for-signature state and presents a prepared transaction for you to sign. That prepared transaction is good for 15 minutes.

There is a check on top of it. Before accepting your parent, the server re-derives the parent’s output script and refuses it unless it matches what the chain indexer currently reports for that inscription. A parent that has moved since you loaded the page is rejected rather than spent. If you see that rejection, reload the workspace so the current location of the parent is picked up.

Cost note: the parent input and its return output add about 101 virtual bytes to the reveal, which shows up in the network fee line.

Steps: a gallery

Prepare the manifest.

A JSON file describing your items. It can be uploaded or pasted. The manifest itself is capped at 512 KB and the set at 500 items.
Open /inscribe and select the Gallery sub-tab.

Connect your wallet. Upload or paste the manifest.
Check the item count and the preview.

Confirm the count matches what you intended before you look at any price.
Set the fee rate and output size.

Both apply per item, so at 500 items the totals move quickly. Look at the total, not the per-item figure.
Review the confirmation screen and pay.

Expected wallet screen: one send to the commit address, for the total shown.

Note that the gallery flow quotes a price good for 24 hours rather than the usual one hour.
Verify.

Portfolio should list the set. Check the count, then verify a sample of reveal transaction ids on an explorer.

Steps: parent and child

Open /inscribe and select the Parent/Child sub-tab.

Connect the wallet holding the parent inscription.
Choose the parent from the inscriptions your wallet holds, and add the child content.
Review the confirmation screen and pay the commit address.

Expected wallet screen (first signature): one send to the commit address for the total.
Sign the reveal when asked.

Once the payment is seen, the order moves to a waiting-for-signature state and presents a prepared transaction.

Expected wallet screen (second signature): a transaction spending your parent inscription and returning it to you, alongside the commit input. Check the parent is returned to an address you control.

You have 15 minutes. If it lapses, the order asks again rather than losing anything.
Verify.

Confirm on an explorer that the parent came back to your address and the child exists. That the parent returned is the check that matters.

Safety considerations

Decide the approach first. Gallery, parent and delegate produce different provenance and you cannot convert between them afterwards.
A parent must be spent to be used. It is returned to you in the same transaction, but it does move. Verify it came back.
Check the manifest before paying. At 500 items, a systematic error is 500 errors.
Delegates depend on their target. If the content you delegate to is what people actually want, keep it inscribed and reachable.

Common failure states

What you see	What it means	What to do
The parent is rejected	The parent has moved since the page loaded, and the server checks that	Reload the workspace and start again
The 15-minute signing window lapsed	The prepared reveal expired	The order asks again. Nothing is lost
The manifest is refused	Over 500 items, or over 512 KB, or not valid JSON	Split the set or fix the file
Item count is not what you expected	The manifest has duplicates or blanks	Fix it before paying
Still awaiting payment	The payment has not reached the commit address	Wait. Do not pay again

Recovery route

See recovery routes. A parent-and-child order waiting for your signature is not lost, and neither is a paid gallery order.