In-App Notifications

Alga provides a built-in notification system with per-user preferences, multi-channel dispatch, and real-time delivery.

How Notifications Work

1. A trigger event occurs (alert, investigation update, escalation, mention, on-call handoff)
2. The notification dispatcher resolves user preferences and channel settings
3. Notifications are dispatched to all enabled channels in parallel
4. Delivery status is logged per notification per channel

Notification Triggers

Producers currently emit these notification types:

Trigger	Type value	Description
Escalation triggered	escalation	Escalation policy fires
On-call handoff	oncall_handoff	Shift started / ended for the incoming and outgoing responder
Shift starting soon	oncall_reminder	Sent ~15 minutes before an upcoming handover on a schedule
Post-mortem review requested	post_mortem_review_requested	Post-mortem submitted for review (notifies the commander)
Action item assigned	action_item_assigned	Action item assigned to a user
Action item due reminder	info	In-app reminder sweep for action items approaching their due date
@mention	mention	User mentioned in an investigation thread comment
Incident acknowledged	incident_acknowledged	Sent to the incident commander and responders
Incident mitigated	incident_mitigated	Sent to the incident commander and responders
Incident resolved	incident_resolved	Sent to the incident commander and responders
Incident reopened	incident_reopened	Sent to the incident commander and responders

Alert-created/acknowledged/resolved and investigation created/updated/complete notifications are planned, not shipped: they are too chatty to deliver raw and need digest/rate-limit design first so they don't become a spam cannon.

Multi-Channel Dispatch

Each notification is dispatched to all channels enabled in the user's preferences:

Channel	Description
In-app (in_app)	Notification bell dropdown, pushed via SSE
Email (email)	SMTP-delivered email notification
Slack DM (slack)	Direct message via Slack bot
Voice (voice)	Phone call with IVR menu (requires a phone number; respects voice opt-out)
Mattermost (mattermost)	Placeholder — accepted but not yet delivered

The dispatcher resolves each user's preferences and dispatches to all enabled channels. If a channel is unavailable (e.g., Slack not configured), it is skipped and logged.

@Mentions

Type @ in investigation thread comments to mention users:

• @user — creates an in-app mention notification for that user, delivered through their preference rules like any other type. Mentioning yourself does not notify you; mentioning the same user twice in one comment notifies them once.
• @agent — activates the mentioned agent (investigation trigger mention); it does not create a notification for anyone.

Mention handling resolves only users (and agents) — there is no concept of "groups" in Alga. To address multiple responders at once, use the on-call schedules and escalation policies configured for your teams.

Notification Bell

The notification bell in the top bar shows unread count and a dropdown with recent notifications. Click any notification to navigate to the related resource.

API Endpoints

Method	Path	Description
GET	/api/v1/notifications	List notifications (limit, skip)
GET	/api/v1/notifications/unread-count	Get unread count
POST	/api/v1/notifications/read-all	Mark all as read
POST	/api/v1/notifications/{id}/read	Mark one as read

Real-Time Delivery

Notifications are pushed to the frontend in real-time via SSE (GET /api/v1/events). No polling required — the unread count updates instantly.

Notification Preferences

Each user configures their own preferences as a set of rules mapping a notification_type to one or more channels (in_app, email, slack, voice), with a default_channel fallback for types without an explicit rule. A separate per-user voice opt-out flag suppresses voice calls regardless of rules.

Method	Path	Description
GET	/api/v1/users/me/notification-preferences	Get preferences
PUT	/api/v1/users/me/notification-preferences	Update preferences
POST	/api/v1/users/me/notification-preferences/test	Send test notification

See Notification Preferences for details.

Delivery Log

Every notification attempt is logged with:

• Target user
• Channel used (in-app, email, mattermost, slack)
• Delivery status (sent, failed, skipped)
• Timestamp
• Error details (if failed)

The delivery log is stored in the notification_delivery_logs table and is queryable by user, incident, notification type, and channel.

On-Call Handoff Notifications

When on-call shifts change, Alga automatically sends handoff notifications:

• Incoming responder — Notified that their shift has started with schedule name
• Outgoing responder — Notified that their shift has ended and prompted to write handoff notes

Handoff records track the outgoing and incoming users, handoff notes, and acknowledgement status. These are powered by the HandoffDetector which runs on the scheduler tick cycle.

Daily AI Summary

Alga generates a daily operations digest using an LLM. The summary includes alert counts, active incidents, resolved issues, and trend analysis for the past 24 hours.

Method	Path	Description
GET	/api/v1/dashboard/daily-summary	Get the current daily summary
POST	/api/v1/dashboard/daily-summary	Force regeneration

The DailySummaryScheduler automatically regenerates the summary when it becomes stale. The dashboard page displays the summary prominently. Generation requires MEMORY_LLM_* configuration for the LLM backend.

Global Search

Press Ctrl+K (or Cmd+K on macOS) anywhere in the UI to open the global search. Search across:

• Alerts (by name, labels, summary)
• Incidents (by title, description)
• Investigations (by alert name, findings)

The search input is also available on the Dashboard page for quick access to any resource.