Notifications

Get pinged when a long-running command finishes — in the browser, in Discord, or both.

Table of contents
  1. discord-notify
    1. One-time setup
    2. Usage patterns
    3. Behavior
    4. Limitations
  2. webnotify
  3. Both at once
  4. What this isn’t

terminalcat ships two notification shims, both pipe-friendly:

Tool Path When to use
webnotify terminalcat WS → active browser tab (Web Notifications API) You’re at the keyboard or have the PWA open
discord-notify direct HTTPS POST to a Discord webhook You’re AFK; want a phone push regardless of whether terminalcat tab is open

They’re independent. Use one, the other, or both.

discord-notify

One-time setup

  1. In Discord, open the server you want pings in → Server Settings → Integrations → Webhooks → New Webhook.
  2. Pick a channel, give the webhook a name, click Copy Webhook URL.
  3. On the box: 
    mkdir -p ~/.config
echo 'https://discord.com/api/webhooks/...' > ~/.config/discord-webhook
chmod 600 ~/.config/discord-webhook

The URL is a secret (anyone with it can post to the channel), so 600 permissions and don’t paste it into a public terminal session.

Alternative: set DISCORD_WEBHOOK_URL in your shell env (e.g., in ~/.bash_profile). The shim checks the env var first, then the config file.

Usage patterns 

# fire-and-forget after a long task
nuclei -l targets.txt -t cves; discord-notify "nuclei done: exit=$?"

# include the last lines of output
nuclei -l targets.txt | tee /tmp/scan.log; tail -5 /tmp/scan.log | discord-notify

# multi-line message (newlines preserved up to Discord's 2000-char limit)
discord-notify "$(printf 'scan summary\n  targets: 7\n  findings: 3\n  duration: 12m')"

# wrap any command — notify on success/failure with status
notify-on-done() { "$@"; rc=$?; discord-notify "$* → exit=$rc"; return $rc; }
notify-on-done nuclei -l targets.txt

If no webhook is configured, the shim is a silent no-op — safe to leave in scripts that run on machines without Discord set up.

Behavior

  • Network timeout: 5 seconds (then exits 1 with an error to stderr)
  • Truncates messages to 2000 chars (Discord’s limit) with a visible …(truncated) marker
  • POSTs as Content-Type: application/json, body {"content": "..."}
  • Doesn’t go through the terminalcat server — works even when the origin / tunnel are down

Limitations

  • No file attachments (text only). For files, use webdl to send to your browser.
  • No threading / replies / embeds. Plain content only. If you want richer Discord features, fork the script — it’s ~100 lines.
  • Webhooks are channel-specific. Set up multiple webhooks if you want different categories of pings in different channels (and add DISCORD_WEBHOOK_URL overrides per command).

webnotify

For when you want the browser-tab notification path. Same pipe-friendly shape:

echo "scan done" | webnotify
nuclei -l targets.txt; webnotify "nuclei done"

Goes through the terminalcat WS to whatever browser tab is currently attached to the active session. Requires:

  • The browser to have granted notification permission (terminalcat asks lazily, on first interaction with the snippets / settings drawer)
  • A WS subscriber to be currently connected — if the page is closed, the notification is dropped silently.

Useful when you’re at the keyboard but in another tab; less useful for “phone notification while I’m out”.

Both at once 

notify-all() {
  webnotify "$@" 2>/dev/null
  discord-notify "$@" 2>/dev/null
}

# in your bash_profile or wherever
nuclei -l targets.txt; notify-all "scan done"

You’ll get the browser ping (if a tab is open) AND a Discord push (if the webhook is configured) — whichever arrives is fine.

What this isn’t

  • Not async / queued. If discord-notify fails (timeout, 5xx), the message is lost. Discord-side retries don’t apply to webhooks.
  • Not encrypted at rest. The webhook URL on disk is plaintext; protect with file permissions and don’t commit it.
  • Not rate-limited from our side. Discord rate-limits webhooks at their end (~5 requests/2s); the shim doesn’t queue or back off. If you fire 100 pings in a tight loop you’ll get 429s back.