Notifications

Outpost has one durable place for attention: Needs you. Activity, Chat, the app badge, push, and optional email are views of that same store—not separate queues.

Outcome

Enable content-free browser notifications, open the exact item that needs you, and understand what resolves or clears the badge.

Fast path

1. Install the Outpost web app as Kin if you want phone/desktop push.
2. Open More → Settings.
3. Enable notifications and accept the browser permission.
4. Confirm the setting reports an active subscription.
5. When a notification arrives, open it and authenticate if required.
6. Resolve the exact Needs-you item; resolving the final open item clears the app badge.

Notifications contain no question, model output, prompt, or other sensitive content. They say only that Kin needs you, a Kin update is ready, or an alert exists, and carry a same-origin deep link.

After the tap

A notification opens the stable item route and focuses the live row in Activity. Ordinary questions can be answered directly. Approval, plan, and proposal shortcuts require visible confirmation before the canonical reply is posted.

Only open, still-current items are actionable or counted. Cancelling their run, or a newer run/halt taking ownership, leaves the durable row visible as invalidated or superseded history but makes every later answer conflict. One generic reply never approves several questions bundled into one item.

A Rig login item exposes only Open Computer. It cannot inherit Approve, Deny, or a synthetic run link. A failed continuation similarly exposes only Retry continuation. Chat’s harness permission cards are narrower, conversation-local calls and do not create a second Inbox.

The badge is the number of open, active Needs-you items, never unread Chat messages. Opening the app reconciles it from the durable store.

Alternative delivery

Web Push

This is the ordinary path. Current Apple platforms and the Chrome/Android service worker receive the same content-free event without producing duplicates.

Email break-glass

Operators can enable a content-free SMTP fallback for Inbox items and alerts. The subject is fixed and the body contains only the Outpost deep link. Credentials and cooldown settings belong in Outpost operations, not the browser.

Open Activity

Notifications are optional. Activity always remains the authoritative list of current Needs-you items.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Check
Push is unavailable	Ask the operator to confirm Outpost’s VAPID key is installed.
Nothing arrives	Confirm notifications are allowed for the installed app, then disable/re-enable to replace a stale subscription.
Badge is stale	Open Kin while online; the Inbox refresh reconciles it.
A tap reaches sign-in	Expected after the SSO session expires. Sign in and the same-origin item route continues.
The wrong item opened	Return to Activity; the durable row, not the notification text, is authoritative.

Reference

• Outpost overview
• Chat
• Rig
• Outpost operations