Novu — Open-Source Notification Infrastructure

What it is

Novu is an open-source notification infrastructure platform that provides a unified API for sending notifications across email, SMS, push, in-app, and chat channels. It includes a visual workflow editor for designing notification flows, subscriber management, and a pre-built notification center component you can embed in your app.

It targets developers building applications that need multi-channel notifications without managing separate integrations for each channel.

How it saves time or tokens

Novu replaces the patchwork of email services, SMS gateways, and push notification providers with a single API. Instead of writing separate integration code for SendGrid, Twilio, Firebase, and Slack, you define notification workflows once and Novu routes them to the right channel. For AI applications, this means you can notify users about model completions, alerts, or reports through their preferred channel without building channel-specific logic.

How to use

1. Self-host with Docker or use the cloud:

git clone https://github.com/novuhq/novu.git
cd novu
docker compose up

1. Install the SDK and trigger a notification:

import { Novu } from '@novu/node';

const novu = new Novu('your-api-key');

await novu.trigger('ai-model-complete', {
    to: { subscriberId: 'user-123' },
    payload: {
        modelName: 'gpt-4o',
        status: 'completed',
        resultUrl: 'https://app.example.com/results/456'
    }
});

1. Design notification workflows in the visual editor at your Novu dashboard.

Example

import { Novu } from '@novu/node';

const novu = new Novu('your-api-key');

// Notify user when AI processing is complete
async function notifyModelComplete(userId: string, result: object) {
    await novu.trigger('model-result', {
        to: { subscriberId: userId },
        payload: {
            title: 'Your AI analysis is ready',
            summary: result.summary,
            link: `https://app.example.com/results/${result.id}`,
            processingTime: result.duration
        }
    });
}

// The workflow in Novu can route this to:
// - In-app notification (always)
// - Email (if user has email preference)
// - Slack (if workspace is connected)

Related on TokRepo

• AI tools for automation -- Automation and workflow tools
• AI tools for self-hosted -- Self-hostable infrastructure

Common pitfalls

• Self-hosting Novu requires MongoDB, Redis, and several microservices. Ensure your server has at least 4GB RAM. For small projects, the cloud version may be simpler.
• Each notification channel requires its own provider credentials (SendGrid API key, Twilio SID, etc.). Set up providers before designing workflows.
• Notification templates use Handlebars syntax. Complex conditional logic in templates can become hard to maintain. Keep templates simple and move logic to your application code.