Expo Notifications Channel

Expo channel for pushing notifications to your React Native apps.

Contents

• Disclaimer
• Installation
• Additional Security
• Usage
• Expo Message Request Format
• Testing
• Changelog
• Contributing
• Security
• Credits
• License

Disclaimer

This package is not (yet) part of the Laravel Notification Channels project, because the maintainer seems to be inactive and the existing expo channel has never been completed and is pretty much abandoned. This package respects all of the project's conventions (namespace, message creation ...), so a possible migration in the future should just be about replacing the package's name in your composer.json.

Installation

You can install the package via composer:

composer require dive-be/laravel-expo-channel

Additional Security (optional)

You can require any push notifications to be sent with an additional Access Token before Expo delivers them to your users.

If you want to make use of this additional security layer, add the following to your config/services.php file:

'expo' => [
    'access_token' => env('EXPO_ACCESS_TOKEN'),
],

Usage

You can now use the expo channel in the via() method of your Notifications.

Notification / ExpoMessage

First things first, you need to have a Notification that needs to be delivered to someone. Check out the Laravel documentation for more information on generating notifications.

final class SuspiciousActivityDetected extends Notification
{
    public function toExpo($notifiable): ExpoMessage
    {
        return ExpoMessage::create('Suspicious Activity')
            ->body('Someone tried logging in to your account!')
            ->data($notifiable->only('email', 'id'))
            ->expiresAt(Carbon::now()->addHour())
            ->priority('high')
            ->playSound();
    }

    public function via($notifiable): array
    {
        return ['expo'];
    }
}

Note Detailed explanation regarding the Expo Message Request Format can be found here.

You can also apply conditionals to ExpoMessage without breaking the method chain:

public function toExpo($notifiable): ExpoMessage
{
    return ExpoMessage::create('Suspicious Activity')
        ->body('Someone tried logging in to your account!')
        ->when($notifiable->wantsSound(), fn ($msg) => $msg->playSound())
        ->unless($notifiable->isVip(), fn ($msg) => $msg->normal(), fn ($msg) => $msg->high());
}

Notifiable / ExpoPushToken

Next, you will have to set a routeNotificationForExpo() method in your Notifiable model.

Unicasting (single device)

The method must return either an instance of ExpoPushToken or null. An example:

final class User extends Authenticatable
{
    use Notifiable;

    protected $casts = ['expo_token' => ExpoPushToken::class];

    public function routeNotificationForExpo(): ?ExpoPushToken
    {
        return $this->expo_token;
    }
}

Warning No notifications will be sent in case of null.

Note More info regarding the model cast can be found here.

Multicasting (multiple devices)

The method must return an array<int, ExpoPushToken> or Collection<int, ExpoPushToken>, the specific implementation depends on your use case. An example:

final class User extends Authenticatable
{
    use Notifiable;

    /**
    * @return Collection<int, ExpoPushToken>
    */
    public function routeNotificationForExpo(): Collection
    {
        return $this->devices->pluck('expo_token');
    }
}

Warning No notifications will be sent in case of an empty Collection.

Sending

Once everything is in place, you can simply send a notification by calling:

$user->notify(new SuspiciousActivityDetected());

Validation

You ought to have an HTTP endpoint that associates a given ExpoPushToken with an authenticated User so that you can deliver push notifications. For this reason, we're also providing a custom validation ExpoPushTokenRule class which you can use to protect your endpoints. An example:

final class StoreDeviceRequest extends FormRequest
{
    public function rules(): array
    {
        return [
            'device_id' => ['required', 'string', 'min:2', 'max:255'],
            'token' => ['required', ExpoPushToken::rule()],
        ];
    }
}

Model casting

The ExpoChannel expects you to return an instance of ExpoPushToken from your Notifiables. You can easily achieve this by applying the ExpoPushToken as a custom model cast. An example:

final class User extends Authenticatable
{
    use Notifiable;

    protected $casts = ['expo_token' => AsExpoPushToken::class];
}

This custom value object guarantees the integrity of the push token. You should make sure that only valid tokens are saved.

Handling failed deliveries

Unfortunately, Laravel does not provide an OOB solution for handling failed deliveries. However, there is a NotificationFailed event which Laravel does provide so you can hook into failed delivery attempts. This is particularly useful when an old token is no longer valid and the service starts responding with DeviceNotRegistered errors.

You can register an event listener that listens to this event and handles the appropriate errors. An example:

final class HandleFailedExpoNotifications
{
    public function handle(NotificationFailed $event)
    {
        if ($event->channel !== 'expo') return;
        
        /** @var ExpoError $error */
        $error = $event->data;

        // Remove old token
        if ($error->type->isDeviceNotRegistered()) {
            $event->notifiable->update(['expo_token' => null]);
        } else {
            // do something else like logging...
        }
    }
}

The NotificationFailed::$data property will contain an instance of ExpoError which has the following properties:

final class ExpoError
{
    private function __construct(
        public readonly ExpoErrorType $type,
        public readonly ExpoPushToken $token,
        public readonly string $message,
    ) {}
}

Expo Message Request Format

The ExpoMessage class contains the following methods for defining the message payload. All of these methods correspond to the available payload defined in the Expo Push documentation.

• Badge (iOS)
• Body
• Category ID
• Channel ID (Android)
• JSON data
• Expiration
• Mutable content (iOS)
• Notification sound (iOS)
• Priority
• Subtitle (iOS)
• Title
• TTL (Time to live)

Badge (iOS)

Sets the number to display in the badge on the app icon.

badge(int $value)

Note The value must be greater than or equal to 0.

Body

Sets the message body to display in the notification.

body(string $value)
text(string $value)

Note The value must not be empty.

Category ID

Sets the ID of the notification category that this notification is associated with.

categoryId(string $value)

Note The value must not be empty.

Channel ID (Android)

Sets the ID of the Notification Channel through which to display this notification.

channelId(string $value)

Note The value must not be empty.

JSON data

Sets the JSON data for the message.

data(Arrayable|Jsonable|JsonSerializable|array $value)

Warning We're compressing JSON payloads that exceed 1 KiB using Gzip (if ext-zlib is available). While you could technically send more than 4 KiB of data, this is not recommended.

Expiration

Sets the expiration time of the message. Same effect as TTL.

expiresAt(DateTimeInterface|int $value)

Warning TTL takes precedence if both are set.

Note The value must be in the future.

Mutable content (iOS)

Sets whether the notification can be intercepted by the client app.

mutableContent(bool $value = true)

Notification sound (iOS)

Play the default notification sound when the recipient receives the notification.

playSound()

Warning Custom sounds are not supported.

Priority

Sets the delivery priority of the message.

priority(string $value)
default()
normal()
high()

Note The value must be default, normal or high.

Subtitle (iOS)

Sets the subtitle to display in the notification below the title.

subtitle(string $value)

Note The value must not be empty.

Title

Set the title to display in the notification.

title(string $value)

Note The value must not be empty.

TTL (Time to live)

Set the number of seconds for which the message may be kept around for redelivery.

ttl(int $value)
expiresIn(int $value)

Warning Takes precedence over expiration if both are set.

Note The value must be greater than 0.

Testing

composer test

Changelog

Please see CHANGELOG for more information on what has changed recently.

Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING for details.

Security

If you discover any security related issues, please email [email protected] instead of using the issue tracker.

Credits

• Muhammed Sari
• All Contributors

License

The MIT License (MIT). Please see License File for more information.