Skip to main content

Installation

Install the ActivitySmith Node.js SDK with npm:
Node
npm install activitysmith

Usage

  1. Create an API key
  2. Set ACTIVITYSMITH_API_KEY or pass apiKey when creating the client.
  3. Reuse the client anywhere you send pushes or Live Activity updates.
Create the client once:
Node
import ActivitySmith from "activitysmith";

const activitysmith = new ActivitySmith({
  apiKey: process.env.ACTIVITYSMITH_API_KEY,
});

Send a Push Notification

Use activitysmith.notifications.send when a deploy finishes, a customer upgrades, or a background job needs attention. title is required. message and subtitle are optional. Push notification example for a new subscription event
Node
await activitysmith.notifications.send({
  title: "New subscription 💸",
  message: "Customer upgraded to Pro plan",
});

Rich Push Notifications with Media

Rich push notification with image
Node
await activitysmith.notifications.send({
  title: "Homepage ready",
  message: "Your agent finished the redesign.",
  media: "https://cdn.example.com/output/homepage-v2.png",
  redirection: "https://github.com/acme/web/pull/482",
});
Send images, videos, or audio with your push notifications, press and hold to preview media directly from the notification, then tap through to open the linked content. Rich push notification with audio What will work:
  • direct image URL: .jpg, .png, .gif, etc.
  • direct audio file URL: .mp3, .m4a, etc.
  • direct video file URL: .mp4, .mov, etc.
  • URL that responds with a proper media Content-Type, even if the path has no extension
media can be combined with redirection, but not with actions. redirection can be an HTTPS URL or a shortcuts://run-shortcut?name=... URL.

Actionable Push Notifications

Actionable push notification with redirection and actions Push notification redirection can open an HTTPS URL or run a specific iPhone Shortcut with a shortcuts://run-shortcut?name=... URL when someone taps the notification. For expanded notification actions, open_url supports HTTPS URLs and shortcuts://run-shortcut?name=... URLs. Webhooks are executed by the ActivitySmith backend and must use HTTPS.
Node
await activitysmith.notifications.send({
  title: "New subscription 💸",
  message: "Customer upgraded to Pro plan",
  redirection: "https://crm.example.com/customers/cus_9f3a1d",
  actions: [
    {
      title: "Open CRM",
      type: "open_url",
      url: "https://crm.example.com/customers/cus_9f3a1d",
    },
    {
      title: "Chat with Jarvis",
      type: "open_url",
      url: "shortcuts://run-shortcut?name=Jarvis",
    },
    {
      title: "Start Onboarding Workflow",
      type: "webhook",
      url: "https://hooks.example.com/activitysmith/onboarding/start",
      method: "POST",
      body: {
        customer_id: "cus_9f3a1d",
        plan: "pro",
      },
    },
  ],
});

Live Activities

There are six types of Live Activities:
  • stats: best for showing business numbers side by side, such as revenue, sales, new users, conversion, refunds, or any other value you want visible at a glance
  • metrics: best for live percentage values that change often, like server CPU, memory usage, disk usage, or error rate
  • segmented_progress: best for anything that moves through clear stages, like deployments, onboarding flows, backups, ETL pipelines, migrations, and AI agent runs
  • progress: best for tracking real-time progress with percentage, like tasks, backups, migrations, syncs, or uploads
  • alert: best for status updates, such as feature adoption, reactivation, onboarding blockers, incidents, escalations, and other operational states
  • timer: use it when you need countdowns or timers

Start & Update Live Activity

Use a stable streamKey to identify the metric, job, deployment, or system you want to keep visible. The first stream(...) call starts the Live Activity. Later calls with the same streamKey update it.

Stats

Stats Live Activity stream example

await activitysmith.liveActivities.stream("sales-hourly", {
  content_state: {
    title: "Sales",
    subtitle: "last hour",
    type: "stats",
    metrics: [
      { label: "Revenue", value: "$2430", color: "blue" },
      { label: "Orders", value: "37", color: "green" },
      { label: "Conversion", value: "4.8%", color: "magenta" },
      { label: "Avg Order", value: "$65.68", color: "yellow" },
      { label: "Refunds", value: "$84", color: "red" },
      { label: "New Buyers", value: "18", color: "cyan" },
    ],
  },
});

Metrics

Metrics Live Activity stream example

await activitysmith.liveActivities.stream("prod-web-1", {
  content_state: {
    title: "Server Health",
    subtitle: "prod-web-1",
    type: "metrics",
    metrics: [
      { label: "CPU", value: 9, unit: "%" },
      { label: "MEM", value: 45, unit: "%" },
    ],
  },
});

Segmented Progress

Segmented Progress Live Activity stream example

await activitysmith.liveActivities.stream("nightly-backup", {
  content_state: {
    title: "Nightly Backup",
    subtitle: "upload archive",
    type: "segmented_progress",
    number_of_steps: 3,
    current_step: 2,
  },
});

Progress

Progress Live Activity stream example

await activitysmith.liveActivities.stream("search-reindex", {
  content_state: {
    title: "Search Reindex",
    subtitle: "catalog-v2",
    type: "progress",
    percentage: 42,
  },
});

Alert

Alert Live Activity stream example

await activitysmith.liveActivities.stream("customer-ops", {
  content_state: ActivitySmith.contentState({
    title: "Reactivation",
    message: "Lumen came back after 2 weeks",
    type: "alert",
    icon: ActivitySmith.alertIcon("cloud.sun", { color: "yellow" }),
    badge: ActivitySmith.alertBadge("Customer", { color: "magenta" }),
  }),
});

Timer

Timer Live Activity stream example

await activitysmith.liveActivities.stream("benchmark-run", {
  content_state: {
    title: "Benchmark Run",
    subtitle: "sampling",
    type: "timer",
    duration_seconds: 300,
    color: "cyan",
  },
});
For a countdown, send duration_seconds. You can update title, subtitle, color, or any other visible field as the work changes. Leave duration_seconds out unless you want to change the timer. To start at 00:00 and count up, set counts_down: false and leave out duration_seconds.

End Live Activity

Call endStream(...) with the same streamKey to dismiss the Live Activity. You can include final values before it is removed. By default, iOS removes the Live Activity after two minutes. Set auto_dismiss_minutes to choose a different dismissal time, including 0 for immediate dismissal.
await activitysmith.liveActivities.endStream("prod-web-1", {
  content_state: {
    title: "Server Health",
    subtitle: "prod-web-1",
    type: "metrics",
    metrics: [
      { label: "CPU", value: 7, unit: "%" },
      { label: "MEM", value: 38, unit: "%" },
    ],
    auto_dismiss_minutes: 2,
  },
});

Icons and Badges

Add more context to Live Activities with icons and badges.

Icon

Supported Live Activity types: stats, metrics, progress, segmented_progress, alert, and timer.

Metrics Live Activity with an SF Symbol icon on the iPhone Lock Screen

await activitysmith.liveActivities.stream("prod-web-1", {
  content_state: ActivitySmith.contentState({
    title: "Server Health",
    subtitle: "prod-web-1",
    type: "metrics",
    icon: ActivitySmith.alertIcon("server.rack", { color: "blue" }),
    metrics: [
      { label: "CPU", value: 18, unit: "%" },
      { label: "MEM", value: 42, unit: "%" },
    ],
  }),
});
The icon.symbol value is an Apple SF Symbol name. Browse the catalog with one of these tools:
  • ActivitySmith app - Open Settings -> SF Symbols to browse 45 hand-picked icons ready to use
  • SF Symbols - Apple’s official macOS app
  • Interactful - free third-party iOS app listing all SF Symbols under Foundations -> Iconography

Badge

Badges are supported by alert, progress, and segmented_progress Live Activities.

Progress Live Activity with a badge on the iPhone Lock Screen

await activitysmith.liveActivities.stream("nightly-database-backup", {
  content_state: ActivitySmith.contentState({
    title: "Nightly Database Backup",
    subtitle: "verify restore",
    type: "progress",
    badge: ActivitySmith.alertBadge("S3", { color: "cyan" }),
    percentage: 62,
  }),
});

Live Activity Colors

Choose from these colors for the Live Activity accent, including progress bars and action buttons, or apply them to an individual icon or badge: lime, green, cyan, blue, purple, magenta, red, orange, yellow, gray

Live Activity Action

Live Activities can include one optional action button.
  • open_url: open an HTTPS URL.
  • open_url with a shortcuts://run-shortcut?name=... URL: run a specific iPhone Shortcut, for example to open an app.
  • webhook: trigger a backend GET/POST workflow.

Live Activity with action button

Open URL action

await activitysmith.liveActivities.stream("prod-web-1", {
  content_state: {
    title: "Server Health",
    subtitle: "prod-web-1",
    type: "metrics",
    metrics: [
      { label: "CPU", value: 76, unit: "%" },
      { label: "MEM", value: 52, unit: "%" },
    ],
  },
  action: {
    title: "Dashboard",
    type: "open_url",
    url: "https://status.example.com/servers/prod-web-1",
  },
});

Apple Shortcut action

await activitysmith.liveActivities.stream("prod-web-1", {
  content_state: {
    title: "Server Health",
    subtitle: "prod-web-1",
    type: "metrics",
    metrics: [
      { label: "CPU", value: 76, unit: "%" },
      { label: "MEM", value: 52, unit: "%" },
    ],
  },
  action: {
    title: "Chat with Jarvis",
    type: "open_url",
    url: "shortcuts://run-shortcut?name=Jarvis",
  },
});

Webhook action

await activitysmith.liveActivities.stream("search-reindex", {
  content_state: {
    title: "Reindexing product search",
    subtitle: "Shard 7 of 12",
    type: "segmented_progress",
    number_of_steps: 12,
    current_step: 7,
  },
  action: {
    title: "Pause Reindex",
    type: "webhook",
    url: "https://ops.example.com/hooks/search/reindex/pause",
    method: "POST",
    body: {
      job_id: "reindex-2026-03-19",
      requested_by: "activitysmith-node",
    },
  },
});

Channels

Target specific channels when sending a push notification or streaming a Live Activity.
Node
await activitysmith.notifications.send({
  title: "New subscription 💸",
  message: "Customer upgraded to Pro plan",
  channels: ["ios-builds", "engineering"],
});

await activitysmith.liveActivities.stream("nightly-backup", {
  channels: ["ios-builds"],
  content_state: {
    title: "Nightly database backup",
    number_of_steps: 3,
    current_step: 1,
    type: "segmented_progress",
  },
});

Widgets

Lock screen widgets

ActivitySmith lets you display any value on your Lock Screen with widgets - SaaS metrics, revenue, signups, uptime, habits, or anything else you want to track. Create a metric in the web app, then update the metric value using our API, add a widget to your lock screen and it will fetch the latest update automatically.

Create widget metric

Use the metric key to update its value.
await activitysmith.metrics.update("deploy.success_rate", 99.9);
String metric values work too.
await activitysmith.metrics.update("prod.status", "healthy");

Error Handling

SDK calls return promises, so wrap API calls with try/catch:
Node
try {
  await activitysmith.notifications.send({ title: "Hello" });
} catch (error) {
  console.error(error);
}

Additional Resources

NPM Package

Install the ActivitySmith Node.js SDK from npm

Source Code

View the Node.js SDK source on GitHub