Sending a notification in the Next.js Supabase Starter Kit

Makerkit allows you to send notifications using the @kit/notifications package. The package provides a simple API to send notifications.

Notifications API

The createNotificationsApi provides an easy to use API to send notifications. You can send notifications to users after they sign up, create a task, or perform any other action.

The service is a server-side service, so you can use it in your server actions or route handlers. This service cannot be used from the client-side since the only role who can insert notifications is the service_role role.

Here is a super simple example of how you can send a notification after a user signs up.

import { createNotificationsApi } from '@kit/notifications/api';
import { getSupabaseServerAdminClient } from '@kit/supabase/server-admin-client';
async function sendNotificationAfterSignup(
  accountId: string,
) {
  const client = getSupabaseServerAdminClient();
  const api = createNotificationsApi(client);
  await api.createNotification({
    account_id: accountId,
    body: 'You have successfully signed up!',
  });
}

In this example, we are sending a notification to the user after they sign up. The account_id is the ID of the user who signed up, and the body is the message that will be displayed in the notification.

Users will see the notifications if:

1. they're sent to their own account
2. they're sent to a team they're a member of

Notification channels

You can send notifications to different channels using the channel field. For example, you can send a notification to the email or in_app. In-app notifications will be displayed in the app, while email notifications will be sent to the user's email. By default, notifications are sent to the in_app channel.

The createNotificationsApi function takes the client parameter - eg. the Supabase client.

import { createNotificationsApi } from '@kit/notifications/api';
import { getSupabaseServerAdminClient } from '@kit/supabase/server-admin-client';
async function sendNotificationAfterSignup(
  accountId: string,
) {
  const client = getSupabaseServerAdminClient();
  const api = createNotificationsApi(client);
  await api.createNotification({
    account_id: accountId,
    body: 'You have successfully signed up!',
    channel: 'email',
  });
}

The example above sends an email notification to the user after they sign up.

NB: this require a Database trigger to send the email notification! Please dont't forget to add the trigger in your database.

NB: at the time of writing, this is not yet implemented in the Next.js Supabase Starter Kit. It is a feature that is planned for the future.

Notification types

You can send different types of notifications using the type field. For example, you can send a info, warning, or error notification.

By default, notifications are sent as info.

import { createNotificationsApi } from '@kit/notifications/api';
import { getSupabaseServerAdminClient } from '@kit/supabase/server-admin-client';
async function sendNotificationAfterSignup(
  accountId: string,
) {
  const client = getSupabaseServerAdminClient();
  const api = createNotificationsApi(client);
  await api.createNotification({
    account_id: accountId,
    body: 'You have successfully signed up!',
    type: 'info', // this is the default type, no need to specify it
  });
}

Warning notifications

To send a warning notification, you can use the warning type.

api.createNotification({
  account_id: accountId,
  body: 'Your credit card is about to expire!',
  type: 'warning',
});

Error notifications

To send an error notification, you can use the error type.

api.createNotification({
  account_id: accountId,
  body: 'There was an error processing your payment.',
  type: 'error',
});

Notification Links

You can also include a link in the notification using the link field. This will create a clickable link in the notification.

api.createNotification({
  account_id: accountId,
  body: 'You have created a task!',
  link: '/tasks/123',
});

The example above sends a notification to the user after they create a task. The notification will include a link to the task.