ActivityPub Web Push Notifications

If this has/is already being considered then I’d love to hear about it or even help design the system. It’s something I’ve personally wanted since trying out the ActivityPub plugin over a year and a half ago. But more than that I also believe would really help elevate WordPress ActivityPub (especially with the upcoming reader and more fully integrated experience).

The idea is simple (execution probably not as much 🤷‍♂️). As a user I’d like the ability to turn on/off and manage which notifications I receive through native web push technologies.

I know that right now there’s some functionality within the plugin for me to receive emails about certain ActivityPub “activities”, but this method is a much more clunky and disconnected user experience in many ways. I know there are privacy concerns some have about push notifications and potentially other concerns I’m not aware of, and email notifications can still be available for the people that prefer them. I’m not arguing to replace, simply to improve the plugin notifications by adding another option for people who prefer it. I can share more details about why using emails as a notification system is clunky and has UX issues, but for the sake of making this decently long post less long we’ll start here. And yes, I know there are still some issues with push style notifications and it would need to be finely tuned and tested, but I believe it’s ultimately a better system and user experience.

I found a few API’s and other resources that might help start he conversation.
Notifications API Documentation from MDN
Baging API Documentation from MDN
Details about how WordPress.com handles activating web notifications
Mastodon Documentation on the Push API
Additional Mastodon Notifications API documentation (not sure if this is helpful)jor or

If you’re here, thanks for considering this and joining the conversation! In summary, I realise the issue is likely much more nuanced and complicated than I’m aware of currently because I don’t understand the underlying systems that would/already are powering ActivityPub notifications of any sort. I’m only expressing a possible system that I feel would be more enjoyable, integrated, and seamless. Hopefully this can be a jumping off point into great conversations or a continuation of conversations already happening. Thanks again!