Instance notifications overview

Notifications are the messages your instance sends on its own: emails, text messages and calls to other systems. They are sent when something happens, such as a form submission or an order. How they behave depends on whether the instance is a staging or a production instance.

The three kinds

Staging and production

A production instance sends email to the real recipients. A staging instance sends email only to its test recipients. On staging the sender address is rewritten and the real recipients are moved into the subject. You can see who it was meant for without emailing them.

So you cannot test recipients, CC, BCC or the sender on staging. Check them on the sent-notification record, and test delivery on production.

Example: what was sent

A developer can list what an instance sent with the admin_sent_notifications query. Filter by type, and leave out the options field, because an API call's options can hold a live access token:

{
  admin_sent_notifications(per_page: 10, filter: { notification_type: { value: EMAIL } }) {
    total_entries
    results { id created_at }
  }
}

Common mistakes

• Testing a reply email on staging and expecting it in the customer's inbox. Staging sends only to test recipients.
• Printing sent notifications with their options. They can contain a live token.
• Sending notifications during a page request. Send them from a background job.

• Email notificationsHow emails are sent.
• SMS notificationsSend text messages.