January 2021 Summaries

In this series, we explain how to use Twitch EventSub and Courier to automatically send notifications to multiple destinations – Slack, Discord, and more – when your Twitch stream goes live. We'll create a Node.js app using Express.js to accept events from Twitch EventSub, listen for our event, and trigger a notification using Courier.

Today, we’re excited to announce the release of Environments in Courier. You can now create, preview, and troubleshoot your notifications in a test environment before going live.With support for two environments – Test and Production – you no longer have to worry about accidentally sending a notification to your users before you’re ready. Having an isolated test environment means you can safely debug your notifications, invite your team to make changes, and ensure your notifications work exactly as you intend before shipping to production.Let’s take a look at what’s possible with Environments in Courier.Map your development environments to your workflow in CourierBoth your test and production environments have two API keys: Draft and Published. Across the four API keys, you can easily and seamlessly map your development environments to your workflow in Courier. For example, you might use the Published key in the Test environment for testing and the Draft key in the Production environment for staging.Easily copy templates and assets between environmentsWe designed Environments to make it simple and fast to migrate your notification templates and their associated assets – Brands, categories, and more – between test and production. Once you’re happy with your test notification, you can copy it to your production environment in just a few clicks.Support test and production API keys for your integrationsBy default, all of your integrations work in both the test and production environments. But, if you’d prefer an extra layer of security, you can add a test API key for your integration that will only send notifications from Courier’s test environment.Get started with Environments todayEnvironments is available to customers on all plans, including our free tier. You can learn more about Environments and how to get started in our Help Center.New to Courier? Create your free account today and send up to 10,000 notifications every month, for free. Or, chat with us below to learn more.Get started sending notifications with Courier in minutes, not days!We have SDKs in Ruby, Go, Python, Javascript, Node.js, and React. Sign up` The new feature, Environments, allows developers to create a test environment before sending notifications to users, providing an isolated space for debugging and testing without accidentally sending notifications prematurely. This feature supports two environments - Test and Production - with two API keys each, enabling seamless mapping of development environments to workflows in Courier. The feature also facilitates easy copying of templates and assets between environments, as well as support for test and production API keys for integrations, providing an extra layer of security. Environments is available on all plans, including the free tier, and allows developers to start sending notifications with Courier in minutes.

Twitch has introduced EventSub as a transport-neutral solution to handle real-time events, replacing its existing PubSub and Webhook APIs. To accept real-time events from Twitch, developers need to create a callback URL using Express.js, which will log the request and return a 200 status response to confirm receipt. The application must also verify the signature of the incoming request to prevent tampering. With these steps complete, developers can now receive real-time events from Twitch and prepare for the next part of the tutorial, where they will create subscriptions to the stream.online event and use Courier to design and send notifications to multiple destinations.

Setting up and configuring a development environment on an M1 MacBook Pro can be more complicated than usual due to Apple's switch from Intel processors to their own M1 chip. To overcome this, one can create a "Rosetta Terminal" that duplicates the native terminal and forces it to run with Rosetta 2, allowing for easy installation of critical CLI tools like nvm and brew. This dedicated Rosetta Terminal can be used to install these tools, which are then translated by Rosetta during installation, making them compatible with Apple Silicon. Additionally, some applications may not have fully native support for the new M1 architecture, so it's recommended to check if they offer ARM optimized versions or use alternative methods like installing x86_64 versions and running them through Rosetta.

On January 6, I was joined by Riley Napier for our first Courier Live of the year, where we explored setting up webhooks using Twitch EventSub and triggering notifications about Twitch livestreams using a Glitch application. We walked through how to set it up, created a notification in Courier, used the Webhook Provider to make a request to the Discourse API to display a banner on the community forum, and personalized the Discourse banner content using Jsonnet. The code for handling Twitch EventSub requests is available in the Courier Twitch EventSub Glitch application, which users can remix and start sending their own Twitch notifications.

Courier, Segment, and Twilio form a powerful combination that enables developers and companies to deliver personalized notifications to users across multiple channels without building their own infrastructure. Segment provides a unified view of customer data, while Twilio offers communication APIs for voice, SMS, video, WhatsApp, and email. Courier sits between these two platforms, providing an orchestration layer that enables the connection of customer data to communication channels through a no-code interface, abstracting away channel integrations, template management, workflow orchestration, user preferences management, and logs and analytics capabilities.