Allow sending custom properties in POSTed JSON

[tka85]

💡 Idea
When publishing a notification using JSON, it would be useful to allow sending additional custom properties which will be forwarded verbatim to the mobile front end (assuming one uses a self-hosted ntfy server and builds their own mobile app). These additional properties could be nested under the toplevel "extras" property in the POSTed JSON.

💻 Target components
This is a feature request for the ntfy server.

Example:

{
  "topic": "1234", 
  // existing properties
  "message": "foo",
  "title": "bar",
  // additional custom properties
  "extras": {
    "customField": "baz"
  }
}

[wunter8]

What would be the goal of this? Why not just send a custom JSON string as the body of the notification?

[tka85]

The ntfy server currently only understands predefined properties in the POSTed JSON. Added custom properties do not get forwarded to the frontend. Use case is for self-hosted nfty servers with a custom frontend that needs fields beyond the known message, title etc.

This is the relevant discussion with @binwiederhier .

[wunter8]

I understand what you're asking for (and I agree with binwiederhier that it'd probably be easy to implement), but I don't understand why sending an (escaped) JSON string as the body of the message doesn't work. If you're already building a custom frontend, then you don't need to use any of ntfy's existing fields (except to get your JSON string out).

The current ntfy response looks like this:

{ 
   "id":"fajyTv5FQ0iM",
   "time":1690985276,
   "expires":1691028476,
   "event":"message",
   "topic":"test",
   "message":"testing"
}

You want to change it to this:

{ 
   "id":"fajyTv5FQ0iM",
   "time":1690985276,
   "expires":1691028476,
   "event":"message",
   "topic":"test",
   "message":"testing"
    "extras": {
        "customField": "value"
    }
}

Then, after data = resp.json(), you could access the custom value at data.extras.customField

Why not do this?

{ 
   "id":"fajyTv5FQ0iM",
   "time":1690985276,
   "expires":1691028476,
   "event":"message",
   "topic":"test",
   "message":"\"{\"message\": \"testing\", \"customField\": \"value\"}\""
}

Then, after data = resp.json().message.json(), you could access the custom value at data.customField, right?

[tka85]

Just opened the issue because as @binwiederhier suggested
(a) this was something he had already considered doing before and
(b) the implementation is easy

Yes, what you propose would work. I'm not saying it wouldn't.
But cannibalizing the preexisting message that has very specific semantics, is a hackey workaround.

[wunter8]

Got it. I hope you don't feel like I am dismissing the value of your proposal. I know other people have already been sending JSON strings with custom fields as the message, so I wanted to make sure you weren't having problems with that.

And I'm sure they will also be happy to have a convenient extras field where they can put additional information instead.

I will see if I can implement this sometime this week.

[tka85]

I don't feel like that at all. I completely understand you asking for justification esp. when it comes to feature requests. After all it is I who makes a request for your time and effort.

Much appreciated regardless of whether you go ahead with its implementation or not.

[tka85]

@wunter8 I see the fix. Would it be possible to also get arrays to be allowed values inside the extras object?

[tka85]

Any update on this?

[wunter8]

Nope. Sorry. I've been busy with work and haven't been able to finish the Android side of things yet