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Notifications and Push

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Dennis Braun edited this page Jun 20, 2026 · 5 revisions

Notifications and Push

Tribu has an in-app notification center and optional browser push notifications for reminders and household updates.

What notifications support

  • in-app notification feed
  • unread count
  • mark read, read all, and delete
  • SSE stream for real-time notification delivery
  • browser push through VAPID keys
  • external notification destinations through Apprise
  • per-category push preferences
  • push diagnostics in settings

Browser push requirements

  • HTTPS in normal production use
  • VAPID public key, private key, and claims email set in the backend environment
  • backend restarted after changing VAPID variables
  • browser permission granted by the user
  • user enabled push in settings

On iPhone and iPad, Web Push works for installed Home Screen apps on supported iOS/Safari versions, not from every normal browser tab.

Recommended setup

  1. Start with in-app notifications only.
  2. Add VAPID keys to .env.
  3. Restart the backend.
  4. Open Settings and run the push diagnostics.
  5. Enable push per category instead of turning on everything at once.

External notification destinations

Household admins can add Apprise-backed destinations from Settings → Notifications. Use them when reminders and household changes should also go to a household-owned channel such as Gotify, ntfy, Telegram, Matrix, Pushover, or email.

Destination event choices include:

  • calendar reminders and event changes
  • task reminders, assignments, and task changes
  • birthdays and meal planning reminders
  • shopping list changes and shopping item changes
  • family membership or household changes

Important behavior:

  • The API always creates Apprise destinations. It still returns provider: "apprise" for compatibility, and ignores legacy provider values sent on create.
  • In-app notifications and browser push state are persisted before any external destination send runs.
  • Shopping destination messages are sent only after the list or item change has been saved.
  • Quiet hours suppress shopping destination sends only when every household member is currently in quiet hours.
  • Saved destination URLs are encrypted for storage and are not shown back in Settings after creation.
  • Destination hosts must resolve to globally routable addresses unless an admin explicitly allows a private host for a trusted self-hosted service.
  • Use Test on each destination before relying on it.
  • If Apprise is missing or a destination fails, Tribu keeps first-party notifications working and records the destination result for troubleshooting.

Privacy notes:

  • External platforms can receive household reminder text and delivery metadata.
  • Backups can include encrypted destination URLs, so protect backups like application secrets.
  • Public docs and screenshots should use placeholder URLs such as ntfy://ntfy.sh/family-topic, not real tokens.

Troubleshooting

Settings says server push is not configured

  • Confirm VAPID_PUBLIC_KEY, VAPID_PRIVATE_KEY, and VAPID_CLAIMS_EMAIL are set.
  • Restart the backend after changing .env.
  • Check backend logs for push configuration messages.

Browser permission was denied

Use browser or operating system settings to reset notification permission for the site, then try again.

Push works on desktop but not iPhone

Install Tribu to the Home Screen and try from the installed app. Confirm your iOS/Safari version supports Web Push for installed web apps.

Related pages

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