Testing Push Notifications

Once you're all set up with push notifications, you can use the CLI to test how these notifications will look for your devices.

Pre-requirements:

• Your app has push notifications configured for at least one provider in your app settings
• You have a user that has at least one device associated
  • To skip sending to devices but only to see the payload, pass skip_devices=true

The base command for testing push notifications is:

stream chat:push:test --user_id 'user_123'

This command provides the following functionality for you:

1. Picks a random message from a channel that this user is part of
2. Uses the notification templates configured for your push provider to render the payload using this message
3. Sends this payload to all of the user's devices

tip

This particular use case is ideal for testing a newly configured app, to make sure the push notifications are configured exactly as desired.

In some cases, you might want to test the new notification template that you configured on the dashboard.

For example, let's say you want to test a new APN notification template:

stream chat:push:test --user_id 'user_123' --apn_notification_template '{"aps":{"alert":{"title":"{{ sender.name }} @ {{ channel.name }}","body":"testing out new stuff:{{ message.text }}"},"category":"NEW_MESSAGE_2"}}'

As you can see below, the new template will be used for sending the push notification only this time. The existing clients will leverage the default configuration.

Push Test Parameters

Here's a full list of parameters that you can use with the test command:

NAME	TYPE	DESCRIPTION	DEFAULT	OPTIONAL
user_id	string	The user ID	-
message_id	string	ID of the message that should be used instead of a random one. If the message doesn't exist, an error will occur	-	✓
apn_notification_template	string	Notification template to be used instead of the configured APN one. This is one time only. (v1 only)	-	✓
firebase_notification_template	string	Notification template to be used instead of the configured APN one. This is one time only. (v1 only)	-	✓
firebase_data_template	string	Data template to be used instead of the configured Firebase one. This is one time only. (v1 only)	-	✓
skip_devices	boolean	Skip requiring device tokens and sending.	False	✓

Push Test Payload

NAME	TYPE	DESCRIPTION	DEFAULT	OPTIONAL
device_errors	object	A map of errors indexed by device tokens.	-	✓
general_errors	array of strings	A list of errors encountered with providers.	-	✓
skip_devices	boolean	Given skip_devices flag is passed back.	-	✓
rendered_apn_template	string	Your executed APN template (v1 only).	-	✓
rendered_firebase_template	string	Your executed Firebase template (v1 only).	-	✓
rendered_message	string	Your payload (v2 for all providers and v1 for Huawei/Xiaomi)	-	✓