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Browser

Desktop push notifications, delivered even when Willow is not open in a tab. Useful for events someone needs to see within seconds rather than at their next inbox check.

Browser push is the only channel with a two-sided requirement: the deployment must support it, and each person must opt in on each device they want notified.

Availability​

Push depends on a VAPID keypair configured on the Willow server.

  • Hosted Willow: contact Willow to enable it.
  • Self-hosted: set VAPID_PUBLIC_KEY and VAPID_PRIVATE_KEY on the server, and optionally VAPID_SUBJECT (a mailto: or https: contact URL for push service operators).
Rotating the keypair unsubscribes everyone

The keypair is long-lived by design. Changing it invalidates every existing browser subscription, and each person has to opt in again.

Each person opts in​

Once available, every admin and end user enables it themselves from their profile's Notifications section. The browser prompts for permission, and the grant is per browser and per device — someone with a laptop and a desktop opts in twice, and all their devices then ring.

Nobody can be opted in on another person's behalf; browsers only accept a permission grant from a user gesture.

Using it​

Turn on Browser for a rule delivery. The audience decides who is targeted; no destination is needed. People in the audience who have not opted in are simply skipped.

If nobody in the audience has opted in, the delivery is recorded as failed with that reason, so it reads as a setup gap rather than an outage.

Repeats of the same event type collapse on the desktop, so a burst does not bury everything else.

Troubleshooting​

"No browser subscriptions for these recipients". Nobody in the audience has opted in yet. Ask them to enable it in their profile.

A person stopped receiving pushes. Their subscription expired or was revoked — browsers do this when permissions are reset, the profile is cleared, or the browser is reinstalled. Willow deletes subscriptions the push service reports as gone; the person opts in again to restore it.

Nothing after enabling. Confirm the browser is not in a do-not-disturb or focus mode, and that notifications are not blocked for the Willow origin at the OS level.

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