n8n push notifications

Before you start

Grab two keys from PushPiper. Sign in at pushpiper.com/app (free, no credit card), create an app called n8n for its API token (APP_TOKEN), and copy your user key (USER_KEY) from the dashboard.

Store your keys in a credential

1. In n8n, create a new credential and pick Custom Auth.
2. Paste this into the JSON field, fill in your keys and save it as PushPiper.

{
  "body": {
    "token": "APP_TOKEN",
    "user": "USER_KEY"
  }
}

n8n encrypts credentials and adds this body to every request that uses one, so your keys never show up in the workflow or its exports.

Add the HTTP Request node

1. Method: POST
2. URL: https://api.pushpiper.com/1/messages.json
3. Authentication: Generic Credential Type. Generic Auth Type: Custom Auth, then pick your PushPiper credential.
4. Switch on Send Body. Leave Body Content Type on JSON and Specify Body on Using Fields Below.
5. Add the body parameters title and message, plus any extras from the table below. Expressions work, like {{ $json.message }}.

Or skip the clicking: copy this node, paste it onto your canvas and pick the credential.

{
  "nodes": [
    {
      "name": "Send to PushPiper",
      "type": "n8n-nodes-base.httpRequest",
      "typeVersion": 4.2,
      "position": [0, 0],
      "parameters": {
        "method": "POST",
        "url": "https://api.pushpiper.com/1/messages.json",
        "authentication": "genericCredentialType",
        "genericAuthType": "httpCustomAuth",
        "sendBody": true,
        "bodyParameters": {
          "parameters": [
            { "name": "title", "value": "n8n" },
            { "name": "message", "value": "={{ $json.message }}" },
            { "name": "priority", "value": "0" }
          ]
        },
        "options": {}
      }
    }
  ],
  "connections": {}
}

We ran this node on n8n 2.42 against a test server. The request arrives as JSON with title, message, priority, token and user, quotes and line breaks intact. A successful send returns {"status":1,"request":"..."}.

Fields you can send

Everything else is in the API reference.

Limits and caveats

• The Pushover node is out. It always calls api.pushover.net.
• Errors stop the workflow. PushPiper answers HTTP 400 with an errors list for bad input and 429 when you're over quota. The node fails on both unless you change its error handling.
• One message per item. The node runs once for every item it receives, so 500 items means 500 notifications, all counted against your 10,000. Aggregate first if you want one summary.

Related guides

• Home Assistant: Alerts, priorities and emergency alarms from your automations, via notify.rest or rest_command.
• GitHub Actions: One curl step that pings you on failure or after every deploy, with a link to the run.
• Grafana: Firing alerts at high priority, resolved ones at normal priority, through a webhook contact point.

Sources

• n8n docs: HTTP Request node
• n8n docs: HTTP Request credentials
• n8n source: Pushover node
• n8n source: Custom Auth credential