Easy notifications from Bash scripts!

I’ve had this thought popping up endless times in the past:

Oh, I wish there was a easy way to track Bash scripts execution and that I could know whenever they finish, or whenever there are errors, without having to manually check it all the time!

Luckily, there are ways to solve this! One of them, which I like the most, is a one-liner:

n17() { sh -c "$(wget -qO - "https://n17.io/sh")" -- -k "N17_RAW_API_KEY" "$@"; }

And you use it this way:

mycommand; n17 -t "Script execution finished!"

Which will produce:

Note: you can see some more examples in Notify17’s docs.

Wow, how do I get this?

To set up this script, all you need to do is:

• Create a Notify17 account, it’s free!
• Next, create a raw API key from the dashboard and copy it. Remember to label the key meaningfully, e.g. Bash scripts, so you don't forget what it's used for.
• Replace the N17_RAW_API_KEY text in the Bash function with your raw API key.
• Use the script!
• Optional but greatly suggested — download the app for Android or iOS to receive notifications on mobile devices.

Some examples

This is how you can use the n17 function in different contexts:

# Simple title-only notification  
n17 -t "Hello!"
# Notification with multiline content
n17 -t "Hello!" -c "This is a \nmultiline string"
# Process stdin  
echo "I come from another command!" | n17 -t "Result" -c -
# Process stdin (title)  
echo "I come from another command!" | n17 -t -
# Notification on success/error
command && n17 -t "Success!"
command || n17 -t "Failed!"

Bash errors trap

And what if we wanted to catch Bash errors?

set -e
# Define the n17 function
n17() { sh -c "$(wget -qO - "https://n17.io/sh")" -- -k "N17_RAW_API_KEY" "$@"; }
# This function will be invoked on script error.
n17TrapErr() {
  n17 \
    -t "Script execution error!" \
    -c "$(cat <<CONTENT
Script ${BASH_SOURCE[0]} has encountered an error:
Exit code: $1
Line: $2
Command: $3
Trap arguments: $@
CONTENT
  )"
}
# Set up the error trap, which will forward all desired info for each error
trap 'n17TrapErr "$?" "$LINENO" "$BASH_COMMAND"' ERR
## This function will always throw an error
## (127, command not found)
thisCommandDoesNotExist

And we’ll get:

Enjoy! 😄

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