React UINode.jsCommentsTutorialsWebhooksNotifications

How to send email notifications when comments are created

Liveblocks allows you to build a commenting experience with Comments. Using our webhooks and REST API, it’s possible to send email notifications to users when they’re mentioned in comments.

What we’re building

In this guide we’ll be learning how to send comments notifications, and more specifically, we’ll be looking at how to:

Create an endpoint in your project

When a webhook event is triggered, it can send a POST request to the back end in your project, and from within there we can send the email. In this guide, we’ll be using a Next.js route handler (API endpoint) as an example, but other frameworks work similarly.

In order to use webhooks, we’ll need to retrieve the headers and body from the request. Here’s the basic endpoint we’ll be starting from:

export async function POST(request: Request) {  const body = await request.json();  const headers = request.headers;
  // Handle webhooks and notifications  // ...
  return new Response(null, { status: 200 });}

Create this endpoint in your project, and make it available on localhost, for example at the following URL:

/api/liveblocks-notifications

Make a note of this endpoint URL, as you’ll be using it later.

Testing webhooks locally

Running webhooks locally can be difficult, but one way to do this is to use a tool such as localtunnel or ngrok which allow you to temporarily put your localhost server online.

If your project is running on localhost:3000, you can run the following command to generate a temporary URL that’s available while your localhost server is running:

$npx localtunnel --port 3000

localtunnel generates a base URL that can be placed into the Liveblocks webhooks dashboard for quick testing. To use this, take the full address of your webhook endpoint, and replace the domain in your localhost address with the generated URL.

# Take your local URLhttp://localhost:3000/api/liveblocks-notifications
# Replace localhost with the generated domain, then copy ithttps://my-localtunnel-url.loca.lt/api/liveblocks-notifications

You now have a URL that can be used in the webhooks dashboard.

Set up webhooks on the Liveblocks dashboard

To use webhooks, you need to pass your endpoint URL to the webhooks dashboard inside your Liveblocks project, and tell the webhook to trigger when a comment has been created.

  1. Select your project

    From the Liveblocks dashboard, navigate to the project you’d like to use with webhooks, or create a new project.

    Create a Liveblocks project

  2. Go to the webhooks dashboard

    Click on the “Webhooks” tab on the menu at the left.

    Click webhooks

  3. Create an endpoint

    Click the “Create endpoint…” button on the webhooks dashboard to start setting up your webhook.

    Click add endpoint

  4. Add your endpoint URL

    Enter the URL of the endpoint. In a production app this will be the real endpoint, but for now enter your localtunnel URL from earlier.

    Add endpoint URL

  5. Get your webhook secret key

    Click “Create endpoint” at the bottom, then find your “Webhook secret key” on the next page, and copy it.

    Copy your webhook secret key

  6. Webhooks dashboard is set up!

    Note that you can filter specifically for commentCreated events, but we’re ignoring this for now so we can test more easily. Let’s go back to the code.

Verify the webhook request

The @liveblocks/node package provides you with a function that verifies whether the current request is a real webhook request from Liveblocks. You can set this up by setting up a WebhookHandler and running verifyRequest.

Make sure to add your “Webhook secret key” from the Liveblocks dashboard—in a real project we’d recommend using an environment variable for this.

import { WebhookHandler } from "@liveblocks/node";
// Add your webhook secret key from a project's webhooks dashboardconst WEBHOOK_SECRET = "YOUR_WEBHOOK_SECRET_KEY";const webhookHandler = new WebhookHandler(WEBHOOK_SECRET);
export async function POST(request: Request) {  const body = await request.json();  const headers = request.headers;
  // Verify if this is a real webhook request  let event;  try {    event = webhookHandler.verifyRequest({      headers: headers,      rawBody: JSON.stringify(body),    });  } catch (err) {    console.error(err);    return new Response("Could not verify webhook call", { status: 400 });  }
  // Send notifications  // ...
  return new Response(null, { status: 200 });}

We can then check we’re receiving the correct type of event, get the data from the webhook, and handle sending the notification inside there.

import { WebhookHandler } from "@liveblocks/node";
// Add your webhook secret key from a project's webhooks dashboardconst WEBHOOK_SECRET = "YOUR_WEBHOOK_SECRET_KEY";const webhookHandler = new WebhookHandler(WEBHOOK_SECRET);
export async function POST(request: Request) {  const body = await request.json();  const headers = request.headers;
  // Verify if this is a real webhook request  let event;  try {    event = webhookHandler.verifyRequest({      headers: headers,      rawBody: JSON.stringify(body),    });  } catch (err) {    console.error(err);    return new Response("Could not verify webhook call", { status: 400 });  }
  // When a comment has been created  if (event.type === "commentCreated") {    const { roomId, threadId, commentId } = event.data;
    // Send notifications    // ...  }
  return new Response(null, { status: 200 });}

We now have the roomId, threadId, and commentId of the created comment, along with some other information.

Get comment and thread data

The next step is to use the Liveblocks client from @liveblocks/node to retrieve the entire comment’s data, along with the thread participants. In Liveblocks Comments, a participant refers to a user that has commented or been mentioned in a thread—we’ll be sending a notification to each of these users.

To do this we’ll need to add our project’s secret key to the Liveblocks client, before awaiting the following functions: getComment and getThreadParticipants.

import { Liveblocks, WebhookHandler } from "@liveblocks/node";
// Add your webhook secret key from a project's webhooks dashboardconst WEBHOOK_SECRET = "YOUR_WEBHOOK_SECRET_KEY";const webhookHandler = new WebhookHandler(WEBHOOK_SECRET);
// Add your secret key from a project's API keys dashboardconst API_SECRET = "";const liveblocks = new Liveblocks({ secret: API_SECRET });
export async function POST(request: Request) {  const body = await request.json();  const headers = request.headers;
  // Verify if this is a real webhook request  let event;  try {    event = webhookHandler.verifyRequest({      headers: headers,      rawBody: JSON.stringify(body),    });  } catch (err) {    console.error(err);    return new Response("Could not verify webhook call", { status: 400 });  }
  // When a comment has been created  if (event.type === "commentCreated") {    const { roomId, threadId, commentId } = event.data;
    try {      // Get comment data and participants      const [comment, { participantIds }] = await Promise.all([        liveblocks.getComment({ roomId, threadId, commentId }),        liveblocks.getThreadParticipants({ roomId, threadId }),      ]);
      // Send notifications      // ...    } catch (err) {      console.log(err);      return new Response("Could not fetch comment data", { status: 500 });    }  }
  return new Response(null, { status: 200 });}

Formatting a comment’s body

Now that we have the comment data and a list of participants, we have one more step before sending the notifications—formatting the comment’s text, found inside comment.body. Let’s take a look at how it works for an example comment, using stringifyCommentBody to transform comment.body.

Comment with example body: 'Thank you so much @Emil Joyce!', with 'so much' in bold
import { stringifyCommentBody } from "@liveblocks/node";
// Format comment text into a stringconst stringComment = await stringifyCommentBody(comment.body);
// "Thank you so much emil.joyce@example.com!"console.log(stringComment);

As you can see on line 6, we’re converting the body into a plain string, which means we lose the formatting. We’re also seeing the user’s ID, instead of the name—this is because we need to provide the user’s information, as the comment only stores the user’s ID.

By providing two options, we can transform the comment into HTML, keeping the formatting, and add the user information.

import { stringifyCommentBody } from "@liveblocks/node";
// Format comment text into an HTML stringconst htmlComment = await stringifyCommentBody(comment.body, {  // Transform into HTML  format: "html",
  // Provider user information  async resolveUsers({ userIds }) {    // ["emil.joyce@example.com", ...]    console.log(userIds);
    // Return each user's name    [{ name: "Emil Joyce" } /*, ... */];  },});
// "<p>Thank you <b>so much</b> <span data-mention>@Emil Joyce</span>!</p>"console.log(stringComment);

On line 18, you can now see that we’re creating an HTML string, and using the mentioned user’s name. Note that you can also easily transform your comment into Markdown, or a completely custom format, learn more under stringifyCommentBody.

Let’s use this HTML formatting function in our endpoint, getting user information from your database.

import { Liveblocks, WebhookHandler, stringifyCommentBody } from "@liveblocks/node";
// Add your webhook secret key from a project's webhooks dashboardconst WEBHOOK_SECRET = "YOUR_WEBHOOK_SECRET_KEY";const webhookHandler = new WebhookHandler(WEBHOOK_SECRET);
// Add your secret key from a project's API keys dashboardconst API_SECRET = "";const liveblocks = new Liveblocks({ secret: API_SECRET });
export async function POST(request: Request) {  const body = await request.json();  const headers = request.headers;
  // Verify if this is a real webhook request  let event;  try {    event = webhookHandler.verifyRequest({      headers: headers,      rawBody: JSON.stringify(body),    });  } catch (err) {    console.error(err);    return new Response("Could not verify webhook call", { status: 400 });  }
  // When a comment has been created  if (event.type === "commentCreated") {    const { roomId, threadId, commentId } = event.data;
    try {      // Get comment data and participants      const [comment, { participantIds }] = await Promise.all([        liveblocks.getComment({ roomId, threadId, commentId }),        liveblocks.getThreadParticipants({ roomId, threadId }),      ]);
      // HTML comment body      const htmlComment = await stringifyCommentBody(comment.body, {        format: "html",
        async resolveUsers({ userIds }) {          // Get the correct users from your database          const users = await (userIds);
          return users.map((user) => ({            name: user.name,          });        },      });
      // Send notifications      // ...    } catch (err) {      console.log(err);      return new Response("Could not fetch comment data", { status: 500 });    }  }
  return new Response(null, { status: 200 });}

Send notifications

Now that the comment’s body is in our preferred format, we can send the notifications. Earlier we retrieved participants, a list of userIds that have been mentioned in the thread. You most likely have user information in your database, which you can retrieve from these userIds.

After getting each user’s email, simply loop through and send the formatted comment.

import { Liveblocks, WebhookHandler, stringifyCommentBody } from "@liveblocks/node";
// Add your webhook secret key from a project's webhooks dashboardconst WEBHOOK_SECRET = "YOUR_WEBHOOK_SECRET_KEY";const webhookHandler = new WebhookHandler(WEBHOOK_SECRET);
// Add your secret key from a project's API keys dashboardconst API_SECRET = "";const liveblocks = new Liveblocks({ secret: API_SECRET });
export async function POST(request: Request) {  const body = await request.json();  const headers = request.headers;
  // Verify if this is a real webhook request  let event;  try {    event = webhookHandler.verifyRequest({      headers: headers,      rawBody: JSON.stringify(body),    });  } catch (err) {    console.error(err);    return new Response("Could not verify webhook call", { status: 400 });  }
  // When a comment has been created  if (event.type === "commentCreated") {    const { roomId, threadId, commentId } = event.data;
    try {      // Get comment data and participants      const [comment, { participantIds }] = await Promise.all([        liveblocks.getComment({ roomId, threadId, commentId }),        liveblocks.getThreadParticipants({ roomId, threadId }),      ]);
      // HTML comment body      const htmlComment = await stringifyCommentBody(comment.body, {        format: "html",
        async resolveUsers({ userIds }) {          // Get the correct users from your database          const users = await (userIds);
          return users.map((user) => ({            name: user.name,          });        },      });
      // Get participating users from your database      const users = await (participantIds);
      // Send notifications      for (const user of users) {        // Send email to the user's email address        // send({        //   from: "hello@my-company.com",        //   to: user.email,        //   title: "New comment",        //   html: htmlComment        // });      }    } catch (err) {      console.log(err);      return new Response("Could not fetch comment data", { status: 500 });    }  }
  return new Response(null, { status: 200 });}

Sending emails with Resend

Resend is a great tool for easily sending emails, and in this code example, we’re using it to send the notifications to each user. Make sure to add your API key from the Resend dashboard before running the code.

route.ts
import { Liveblocks, WebhookHandler, stringifyCommentBody } from "@liveblocks/node";import { Resend } from "resend";
// Create Resend client (add your API key)const resend = new Resend("re_123456789");
// Add your webhook secret key from a project's webhooks dashboardconst WEBHOOK_SECRET = "YOUR_WEBHOOK_SECRET_KEY";const webhookHandler = new WebhookHandler(WEBHOOK_SECRET);
// Add your secret key from a project's API keys dashboardconst API_SECRET = "";const liveblocks = new Liveblocks({ secret: API_SECRET });
export async function POST(request: Request) {  const body = await request.json();  const headers = request.headers;
  // Verify if this is a real webhook request  let event;  try {    event = webhookHandler.verifyRequest({      headers: headers,      rawBody: JSON.stringify(body),    });  } catch (err) {    console.error(err);    return new Response("Could not verify webhook call", { status: 400 });  }
  // When a comment has been created  if (event.type === "commentCreated") {    const { roomId, threadId, commentId } = event.data;
    try {      // Get comment data and participants      const [comment, { participantIds }] = await Promise.all([        liveblocks.getComment({ roomId, threadId, commentId }),        liveblocks.getThreadParticipants({ roomId, threadId }),      ]);
      // HTML comment body      const htmlComment = stringifyCommentBody(comment.body, {        format: "html",
        async resolveUsers({ userIds }) {          // Get the correct users from your database          const users = await (userIds);
          return users.map((user) => ({            name: user.name,          });        },      });
      // Get participating users from your database      const users = await (participantIds);
      // Send email to the users' email addresses      try {        const data = await resend.emails.send({          from: "My company <hello@my-company.com>",          to: [users.map((user) => user.email)],          subject: "New comment",          html: htmlComment,        });      } catch (err) {        console.error(err);      }    } catch (err) {      console.log(err);      return new Response("Could not fetch comment data", { status: 500 });    }  }
  return new Response(null, { status: 200 });}

Recap

Great, we’re successfully sending email notifications after new comments are created! In this guide we’ve learned:

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