Notifications Collection

notifications holds the notices shown at the top of a user’s project dashboard. One document is one notice for one user, identified by its key. Only the notifications service touches the collection (services/notifications/app/js/Notifications.js); web and third-party-datastore call its HTTP API. There is no Mongoose schema.

Fields

Field	Type	Meaning	Source
_id	ObjectId	Notice id. web marks a notice as read by this id.	Notifications.js:58-65
user_id	ObjectId	The user who sees the notice.	Notifications.js:26
key	String	Identifies the notice, for example project-invite-<inviteId>. The upsert keeps one document per user_id and key; there is no unique index.	Notifications.js:27, :51-55
templateKey	String	Which notice the frontend renders. Removed when the notice is read or dismissed; the document stays.	Notifications.js:29, :63, :72, :78
messageOpts	Object	Values for the notice text, depending on templateKey (for a project invite: userName, projectName, projectId, token). Removed when the user dismisses the notice by id.	Notifications.js:28, :63
expires	Date	Optional. The TTL index deletes the document after this time.	Notifications.js:35-50

Who Writes It

Code	What it does
Notifications.js:20-56 (addNotification)	POST /user/:user_id (services/notifications/app.ts:29). Upserts by user_id + key. If a document with that key already exists, it is only written again when the caller sends forceCreate.
Notifications.js:58-65 (removeNotificationId)	DELETE /user/:user_id/notification/:notification_id (app.ts:31-34): unsets templateKey and messageOpts.
Notifications.js:67-80	DELETE /user/:user_id and DELETE /key/:key (app.ts:35-36): unset templateKey by key.
Notifications.js:87-100	DELETE /key/:key/bulk (app.ts:38-41) deletes unread notices with a key; deleteNotificationByKeyOnly deletes one document by key.
services/web/app/src/Features/Notifications/NotificationsHandler.mjs:33-66	web side of addNotification. Sends forceCreate: true unless the caller passes false.
services/third-party-datastore/app/js/QueueWorker.mjs:46-58	Our Dropbox sync: when it unlinks a Dropbox account, it posts the dropbox-unlinked notice directly.

Notices that CE and our modules create:

key	templateKey	Created at
project-invite-<inviteId>	notification_project_invite, expires with the invite	services/web/app/src/Features/Collaborators/CollaboratorsInviteHandler.mjs:40-42, built at services/web/app/src/Features/Notifications/NotificationsBuilder.mjs:100-122. Only when the invited email belongs to an existing user.
tpdsFileLimit-<userId>	notification_tpds_file_limit	services/web/app/src/Features/ThirdPartyDataStore/TpdsController.mjs:118-124 (a Dropbox update would push a project over the file limit), NotificationsBuilder.mjs:175-195
dropboxDuplicateProjectNames-<userId>	notification_dropbox_duplicate_project_names	services/web/app/src/Features/ThirdPartyDataStore/TpdsUpdateHandler.mjs:160-169, NotificationsBuilder.mjs:10-30
dropbox-unlinked	dropbox_unlinked_because_access_denied, dropbox_unlinked_because_full or dropbox_unlinked_because_suspended	services/third-party-datastore/app/js/QueueWorker.mjs:20-25, :46-58 (our Dropbox sync)

NotificationsBuilder.mjs also builds keys for group invitations, institution affiliations, subscriptions and old debug projects. Their callers are in the subscription and institution code, and the old-debug-projects check only runs when isSaas (services/web/app/src/Features/Project/ProjectListController.mjs:234-236).

Who Reads It

Code	What it does
Notifications.js:4-10 (getUserNotifications)	GET /user/:user_id (app.ts:30). Returns only the user’s documents that still have a templateKey.
services/web/app/src/Features/Project/ProjectListController.mjs:367	Loads the notices for the project dashboard.
services/web/app/src/Features/Notifications/NotificationsController.mjs	GET /notifications, DELETE /notifications/:notificationId and GET /user/notification/:notificationId (services/web/app/src/router.mjs:922-937).
services/web/modules/dropbox/app/src/DropboxHandler.mjs:128-131	Our Dropbox module: when a user links Dropbox again, marks dropbox-unlinked and dropboxDuplicateProjectNames-<userId> as read.

Indexes

Name	Keys	Options	Migration
expires_1	{ expires: 1 }	TTL, expireAfterSeconds: 10	tools/migrations/20190912145014_create_notifications_indexes.mjs
key_1	{ key: 1 }		same
user_id_1	{ user_id: 1 }		same

Notes

• A read notice is not deleted: only templateKey goes. Because the document still holds the key, a later addNotification without forceCreate for the same key does nothing (Notifications.js:21-24).
• The /key/:key routes act on the key alone, across users (Notifications.js:76-100).
• If web has no apis.notifications.url, it neither creates nor reads notices (NotificationsHandler.mjs:17, :41).