novuhq/novu

The open-source communication infrastructure for agents and products

Novu – Open‑source communication layer for products and AI agents

Novu is a single‑API, unified conversation platform that lets you send and receive messages across the many channels your users already use – inbox/in‑app, email, SMS, push notifications, and chat apps like Slack, Teams, Telegram, WhatsApp, etc. It is built for two audiences:

  1. Product teams that need a notification system (digests, workflows, user preferences, an embeddable <Inbox /> UI) without wiring up each provider separately.
  2. AI‑agent developers who want their agents to talk to users on real‑world channels. Novu normalises inbound messages, routes them to the agent, and sends the agent’s replies back out – all through one “Agent Communication Infrastructure” (ACI).

Core capabilities

  • Unified API – one request format works for every provider and channel.
  • Conversation model – a single data shape for messages, regardless of source (Slack, email, SMS, etc.).
  • Bidirectional messaging – receive user messages and deliver agent replies via the same layer.
  • Workflow engine – conditional routing, branching, and digesting (batching) of notifications.
  • Embeddable UI components – real‑time <Inbox /> and preferences panel for web apps (React now, Vue/Angular/React‑Native planned).
  • Extensive provider catalog – 20 email, 37 SMS, 8 push, 13 chat, plus an in‑app inbox, each implemented as a plug‑in.
  • Open‑core licensing – core is MIT‑licensed; enterprise‑only features live under a commercial license.

Typical use‑cases

  • Product notifications – alerts, activity feeds, marketing messages delivered through the user’s preferred channel.
  • Customer‑support bots – connect a LLM‑powered chatbot to Slack, Teams, or WhatsApp without writing separate webhook adapters.
  • Monitoring & alerting – send anomaly alerts via email, SMS, and an in‑app feed, with digests for high‑frequency events.
  • Internal tooling – route system events to a team’s preferred chat platform while keeping a searchable inbox.

Getting started

  1. Sign up for a free account on the Novu dashboard.
  2. Add the desired providers (e.g., Twilio for SMS, SendGrid for email) via the UI or API.
  3. Use the SDK (@novu/js, @novu/react, etc.) to send notifications or to embed the <Inbox /> component.
  4. For agents, implement a handler that receives the normalized message payload from Novu, processes it (e.g., with Claude, LangChain, or a custom LLM), and returns a reply.

Ecosystem

  • SDKs – JavaScript/TypeScript (@novu/js), React (@novu/react), with native, Vue and Angular wrappers on the roadmap.
  • Docs & demos – full documentation site, a “Novu Connect” CLI demo that wires a Claude‑managed agent to Slack/Telegram/Email in minutes.
  • Community – Discord server, open issue tracker, contribution guidelines, and a public contributors badge.

Novu isn’t an AI model itself, but it provides the plumbing that lets AI agents communicate with real users across the full spectrum of modern messaging channels, turning static notifications into interactive, threaded conversations.