ntfy-notifications

Self-hosted push notifications with ntfy — publishing, authentication, priorities, and integration patterns for scripts and monitoring

Quality

59%

Does it follow best practices?

Impact

Pending

No eval scenarios have been run

Securityby

Passed

No known issues

Optimize this skill with Tessl

npx tessl skill review --optimize ./ntfy-notifications/SKILL.md

ntfy Notifications

ntfy (pronounce "notify") is a self-hosted push notification service. Send notifications from scripts, cron jobs, and monitoring systems to your phone.

Publishing messages

Simple message

curl -d "Backup completed successfully" https://ntfy.example.com/my-topic

With title, priority, and tags

curl -H "Title: Backup Status" \
     -H "Priority: high" \
     -H "Tags: white_check_mark,backup" \
     -d "Daily backup completed in 5 minutes" \
     https://ntfy.example.com/backups

With authentication

# Token auth (preferred)
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" \
     -d "Message here" \
     https://ntfy.example.com/topic

# Basic auth
curl -u username:password \
     -d "Message here" \
     https://ntfy.example.com/topic

With click action and URL

curl -H "Click: https://grafana.example.com/d/alerts" \
     -H "Title: Disk Alert" \
     -H "Priority: urgent" \
     -H "Tags: warning" \
     -d "Disk usage above 90% on /dev/sda1" \
     https://ntfy.example.com/alerts

With actions (buttons)

curl -H "Actions: view, Open Grafana, https://grafana.example.com; http, Restart Service, https://api.example.com/restart, method=POST" \
     -d "Service is down" \
     https://ntfy.example.com/alerts

File attachment

curl -T /var/log/backup.log \
     -H "Filename: backup.log" \
     -H "Title: Backup Log" \
     https://ntfy.example.com/backups

Priority levels

Priority	Keyword	Value	Use for
Max	`max` / `urgent`	5	Service down, security alerts
High	`high`	4	Backup failures, disk warnings
Default	`default`	3	Routine notifications
Low	`low`	2	Info, non-urgent updates
Min	`min`	1	Debug, verbose logging

Tags (emoji shortcodes)

Common tags for notifications:

Tag	Emoji	Use for
`white_check_mark`	✅	Success
`x`	❌	Failure
`warning`	⚠️	Warning
`rotating_light`	🚨	Critical alert
`floppy_disk`	💾	Backup
`whale`	🐳	Docker
`movie_camera`	🎥	Media/Plex
`gear`	⚙️	System/config
`chart_with_upwards_trend`	📈	Monitoring

Full list: https://docs.ntfy.sh/emojis/

Docker deployment

docker-compose.yml

services:
  ntfy:
    image: binwiederhier/ntfy
    command: serve
    ports:
      - "8090:80"
    volumes:
      - ntfy_data:/var/lib/ntfy
      - ./server.yml:/etc/ntfy/server.yml
    environment:
      TZ: Europe/Amsterdam
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  ntfy_data:

server.yml

base-url: https://ntfy.example.com
auth-default-access: deny-all
behind-proxy: true

User and access management

# List users
docker exec ntfy ntfy user list

# Add admin user
docker exec ntfy ntfy user add --role admin USERNAME

# Add regular user
docker exec ntfy ntfy user add USERNAME

# Delete user
docker exec ntfy ntfy user del USERNAME

# Change password
docker exec ntfy ntfy user change-pass USERNAME

Access control (ACLs)

# View all ACLs
docker exec ntfy ntfy access

# Grant read-write to a topic
docker exec ntfy ntfy access USERNAME my-topic rw

# Grant read-only (subscribe only)
docker exec ntfy ntfy access USERNAME alerts ro

# Grant write-only (publish only)
docker exec ntfy ntfy access USERNAME backups wo

# Allow anonymous read access to a topic
docker exec ntfy ntfy access '*' public-topic ro

Token management

# Generate an access token for a user
docker exec ntfy ntfy token add USERNAME

# List tokens
docker exec ntfy ntfy token list

# Remove a token
docker exec ntfy ntfy token remove USERNAME TOKEN

Integration patterns

Backup script notification

#!/bin/bash
NTFY_URL="https://ntfy.example.com/backups"
NTFY_TOKEN="YOUR_TOKEN"

if restic backup /data --json 2>&1 | tail -1 | jq -e '.message_type == "summary"' > /dev/null; then
    curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $NTFY_TOKEN" \
         -H "Tags: white_check_mark" \
         -d "Backup completed: $(date +%F)" "$NTFY_URL"
else
    curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $NTFY_TOKEN" \
         -H "Priority: high" -H "Tags: x" \
         -d "Backup FAILED: $(date +%F)" "$NTFY_URL"
fi

Watchtower container updates

# In docker-compose.yml
services:
  watchtower:
    image: containrrr/watchtower
    environment:
      WATCHTOWER_NOTIFICATION_URL: "generic://ntfy.example.com/watchtower?auth=Bearer+YOUR_TOKEN"

Cron job wrapper

# Wrap any command with ntfy notification on failure
run_with_ntfy() {
    local topic="$1"; shift
    if ! "$@" 2>&1; then
        curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $NTFY_TOKEN" \
             -H "Priority: high" -H "Tags: x" \
             -d "Command failed: $*" "https://ntfy.example.com/$topic"
    fi
}

run_with_ntfy server-alerts certbot renew

Disk space monitor

USAGE=$(df -h / | awk 'NR==2{print $5}' | tr -d '%')
if [ "$USAGE" -gt 90 ]; then
    curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $NTFY_TOKEN" \
         -H "Priority: high" -H "Tags: warning" \
         -H "Title: Disk Alert" \
         -d "Root partition at ${USAGE}%" \
         "https://ntfy.example.com/alerts"
fi

Docker health check alerts

UNHEALTHY=$(docker ps --filter "health=unhealthy" --format '{{.Names}}' | tr '\n' ', ')
if [ -n "$UNHEALTHY" ]; then
    curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $NTFY_TOKEN" \
         -H "Priority: high" -H "Tags: whale,warning" \
         -H "Title: Unhealthy Containers" \
         -d "$UNHEALTHY" \
         "https://ntfy.example.com/docker"
fi

Phone setup

Install the ntfy app (Android: Play Store / F-Droid, iOS: App Store)
Add your server: Settings → Add server → https://ntfy.example.com
Subscribe to topics
Optional: add credentials if auth is required to subscribe

Subscribing (receiving)

# Subscribe in terminal (streaming)
curl -s https://ntfy.example.com/my-topic/sse

# Subscribe with auth
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" \
     https://ntfy.example.com/my-topic/sse

# JSON stream
curl -s https://ntfy.example.com/my-topic/json

# Poll (last 24h)
curl -s "https://ntfy.example.com/my-topic/json?since=24h"

Troubleshooting

Problem	Fix
401 Unauthorized	Check token/password, verify ACLs with `ntfy access`
403 Forbidden	User lacks permission for topic. Add ACL: `ntfy access USER TOPIC rw`
No phone notification	Check app subscription, server URL, topic matches exactly
Behind reverse proxy	Set `behind-proxy: true` in server.yml, ensure proxy passes headers
Messages not persisting	Check volume mount for `/var/lib/ntfy`, ensure cache is enabled in config

Repository: ddnetters/homelab-agent-skills
Commit: 87d2278

Last updated: 23 days ago
Created: 23 days ago

Is this your skill?

If you maintain this skill, you can claim it as your own. Once claimed, you can manage eval scenarios, bundle related skills, attach documentation or rules, and ensure cross-agent compatibility.