Notification Patterns

Notify notifications are designed to be sent and received using the W3C Linked Data Notifications (LDN) standard. Payloads have a predictable structure, based primarily on Activity Streams 2.0, with some additional vocabularies included for particular properties.

Notify notification patterns are more domain-specific implementations of the generic patterns described by Event Notifications in Value-Adding Networks.

Core Payload

All Notify payloads define an Activity Streams 2.0 activity, and include other properties from the Notify context. They may also, optionally, include other properties from other contexts. The following properties from Activity Streams 2.0 are used consistently in all the notification patterns:

  • The activity must contain the following properties:
    • @context: This is the JSON-LD 'context' for the activity.
    • id: This must be a URI, and the use of URN:UUID is recommended. An HTTP URI may be used, but in such cases the URI should resolve to a resource which represents the activity.
    • type: This should include one of the Activity Stream 2.0 Activity Types. It may (depending on the activity) also include a type from the Notify Activity Types vocabulary
    • origin: The originator of the activity, typically the service responsible for sending the notification.
    • object: This should be the focus of the activity. Other object properties may appear in notifications, as properties of other properties.
    • target: The intended destination of the activity, typically the service which consumes the notification.
  • The activity property may (and often will) contain the following properties:
    • actor: This identifies the party or process that initiated the activity.
    • inReplyTo: This property is used when the notification is a direct response to a previous notification (usually a request) and references the Activity Streams 2.0 activity id of the previous notification.
    • context: This identifies another resource which is relevant to understanding the notification.

The following notification patterns are defined to be widely reusable. Their re-use is illustrated in the example scenarios.

Categorised Notification Patterns

Requests

This category of pattern is used to request a service (by making an Activity Streams 2.0 offer)

Undo

This category of pattern is used to undo a previous activity (commonly to retract an offer)

Acknowledgements

This category of pattern is used to acknowledge receipt of an offer (normally providing an accept or reject type)

Announcements

This category of pattern is used to announce the existence of something - normally a web-resource

All Notification Patterns

Name Description Categories
Acknowledge and Accept This pattern is used to acknowledge and accept a request (offer). This should be interpreted to mean that the target intends to act on the request in some way. It does not imply any kind of outcome beyond this. Acknowledgements
Acknowledge and Reject This pattern is used to acknowledge and reject a request (offer). This should be interpreted to mean that the target will take no further action with regard to this offer. It does not imply any kind of outcome beyond this. Acknowledgements
Acknowledge and Tentatively Accept This pattern is used to acknowledge and tentatively accept a request (offer). This should be interpreted to mean that the target currently intends to act on the request in some way, but that this might change. It does not imply any kind of outcome beyond this. Acknowledgements
Acknowledge and Tentatively Reject This pattern is used to acknowledge and tentatively reject a request (offer). This should be interpreted to mean that the target currently intends to take no further action with regard to this offer, but that this might change. It does not imply any kind of outcome beyond this. Acknowledgements
Announce Endorsement This pattern is used to announce the existence of an endorsement, referencing (in context) the resource that has been endorsed Announcements
Announce Ingest This pattern is used to announce a resource has been ingested Announcements
Announce Relationship This pattern is used to announce a relationship between two resources Announcements
Announce Review This pattern is used to announce the existence of a review, referencing (in context) the resource that has been reviewed Announcements
Announce Service Result This pattern is used to announce the existence of a "service result", referencing (in context) the resource that the service result pertains to Announcements
Request Endorsement This pattern is used to request endorsement of a resource owned by the origin system. Requests
Request Ingest This pattern is used to request that the target system ingest a resource Requests
Request Review This pattern is used to request a review of a resource owned by the origin system. Requests
Undo Offer This pattern is used to undo (retract) an offer previously made. Undo