Notifiers

Notifiers allow you to create a named list of notification targets, linking message and input steps to integrations. Like integration, notifier blocks are installation-level configuration items, defined in .fpc files (typically, in ~/.flowpipe/config/flowpipe.spc).

Each notifier contains a list of integrations and related settings used to send and receive data to one or more integrations when an input step executes.

notifier "admins" {

  notify {
    integration = integration.slack.default 
    channel     = "#admins"
  }
  notify {
    integration = integration.email.default 
    to          = ["admins@bluthenterprises.com"]
  }
}

You can have many named notifier instances that use the same integration but override specific values, to route input requests to different people or channels:

notifier "admins" {

  notify {
    integration = integration.slack.default 
    channel     = "#admins"
  }
  notify {
    integration = integration.email.default 
    to          = ["admins@bluthenterprises.com"]
  }
}

notifier "hr" {

  notify {
    integration = integration.slack.default 
    channel     = "#hr"
  }
  notify {
    integration = integration.email.default 
    to          = ["hr@bluthenterprises.com"]
  }
}

Arguments

Notify Block

Arguments

Overriding arguments

There are some settings, such as channel, to, cc, bcc, and subject that can be set in integration, the notifier, or the input or message step:

1. The argument passed to the step has the highest priority
2. The argument passed to the integration has the lowest priority.

This allows you to set default message routing parameters in the integration but override them in the notifier and step. Consider the following example:

integration "email" "default" {
  smtp_host = "smtp.gmail.com"
  from      = "flowpipe@bluthenterprises.com"
  to        = ["support@bluthenterprises.com"]
  subject   = "Flowpipe: Action Requested"
}

notifier "admins" {
  notify {
    integration = integration.email.default 
    to          = ["admins@bluthenterprises.com"]
    cc          = ["gob@bluthenterprises.com"]
  }
}

pipeline "change_request" {
  step "input" "my_step" {
    notifier = notifier["admins"]
    cc       = ["michael@bluthenterprises.com"]
    type     = "button"
    prompt   = "Do you want to approve?"

    option "Approve" {}
    option "Deny" {}
  }
}

When the change_request pipeline is run, the input will send the approval email to admins@bluthenterprises.com and will CC michael@bluthenterprises.com.

Default Notifier

By default, Flowpipe will include a default notifier group that only includes the HTTP integration and thus works out of the box. It is equivalent to:

integration "http" "default" {}

notifier "default" {
  notify {
    integration = integration.http.default
  }
}

Note that you can override the default notifier by creating a notifier named default. This allows you to route messages and inputs to Slack, email, etc by default.

Using Notifiers in Mods

Notifiers are defined in config files (not mod files), but Flowpipe makes them available to mods using the notifier variable. This special variable is a map of all notifiers by name, so you can reference them with standard HCL syntax: notifier.name or notifier[name].

You can reference them directly in a mod:

step "input" "my_step" {
  notifier = notifier["admins"]
  type     = "button"
  prompt   = "Do you want to approve?"

  option "Approve" {}
  option "Deny" {}
}

Generally, Mods that use input and message steps should allow passing a notifier name as a parameter, but default to the default notifier:

pipeline "my_pipe" {
  param "notify" {
    default = "default"
  }

  step "input" "my_step" {
    type     = "button"
    prompt   = "Do you want to approve?"
    notifier = notifier[param.notify]
    channel  = "#general" 
    to       = ["bob.loblaw@bobloblawlaw.com"]
    subject  = "Input Requested"

    option "Approve" {}
    option "Deny" {}
  }
}

This approach allows the mod to work the box, but also allows users of your mod to specify a notifier specific to them if they desire:

flowpipe pipeline run my_pipe --arg notify=admins