Agent Skills

What are Agent Skills?

Agent Skills are an open standard that gives AI agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, etc.) the context they need to work with specific tools and platforms. Novu’s skills provide AI agents with everything required to build multi-channel notification systems — triggering workflows, managing subscribers, integrating the in-app inbox, and configuring preferences.

Prerequisites

A Novu account
Secret key from dashboard.novu.co/settings/api-keys

Setup

Install the Novu skills into your project using the skills CLI:

npx skills add novuhq/skills

This pulls the skills from the novuhq/skills GitHub repository and makes them available to your AI agent (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, etc.).

Available Skills

Skill	Description
trigger-notification	Send single, bulk, broadcast, and topic-based notifications
manage-subscribers	CRUD operations on subscribers and topics
inbox-integration	Integrate the in-app notification inbox into React, Next.js, or vanilla JS
manage-preferences	Configure workflow and subscriber notification preferences

Quick Routing

Use this guide to pick the right skill for your task:

“Send a welcome notification” → trigger-notification
“Create subscriber” → manage-subscribers
“Add a bell icon to my app” → inbox-integration
“Let users opt out of emails” → manage-preferences

Example prompts

Copy or open these prompts in Cursor after installing Novu skills with npx skills add novuhq/skills. Replace YOUR_* placeholders with values from your Novu dashboard.

Core skills

Send a welcome notification

Open in Cursor

Create a subscriber

Open in Cursor

Add a bell icon to my app

Open in Cursor

Configure subscriber preferences

Open in Cursor

Additional skills

These skills are available in the Novu documentation MCP and Mintlify-hosted skill packages:

Set up a code-first workflow

Open in Cursor

Design a multi-channel workflow

Open in Cursor

Configure workflow step content

Open in Cursor

Common Combinations

Full notification system: trigger-notification + manage-subscribers
In-app notifications: trigger-notification + inbox-integration
Complete stack: all four skills together

SDK Overview

Package	Side	Purpose
`@novu/api`	Server	Trigger notifications, manage subscribers/topics/workflows via REST
`@novu/react`	Client	React Inbox component, Notifications, Preferences, Bell
`@novu/nextjs`	Client	Next.js-optimized Inbox integration
`@novu/react-native`	Client	React Native hooks-based Inbox integration
`@novu/js`	Client	Vanilla JavaScript client for non-React apps

Skill Reference

Trigger Notification

Send notifications by triggering Novu workflows. Supports single, bulk, broadcast, and topic-based delivery.

Single
Bulk
Broadcast
Topic

import { Novu } from "@novu/api";

const novu = new Novu({ secretKey: process.env.NOVU_SECRET_KEY });

await novu.trigger({
  workflowId: "welcome-email",
  to: "subscriber-123",
  payload: {
    userName: "Jane",
    activationLink: "https://app.example.com/activate",
  },
});

Send up to 100 events in a single request:

await novu.triggerBulk({
  events: [
    { workflowId: "welcome-email", to: "subscriber-1", payload: { userName: "Alice" } },
    { workflowId: "welcome-email", to: "subscriber-2", payload: { userName: "Bob" } },
  ],
});

Send to all subscribers in the environment:

await novu.triggerBroadcast({
  name: "system-announcement",
  payload: { message: "Scheduled maintenance at 2am UTC" },
});

Send to all subscribers in a topic:

await novu.trigger({
  workflowId: "project-update",
  to: [{ type: "Topic", topicKey: "project-alpha-watchers" }],
  payload: { update: "New release deployed" },
});

Key trigger parameters:

Parameter	Required	Description
`workflowId`	Yes	The workflow identifier (not the display name)
`to`	Yes	Subscriber ID string, subscriber object, or topic target
`payload`	No	Data passed to the workflow, validated against `payloadSchema`
`overrides`	No	Provider-specific overrides per channel
`transactionId`	No	Unique ID for idempotency and cancellation
`actor`	No	Subscriber representing who triggered the action
`context`	No	Key-value pairs for multi-tenancy / organizational context

Manage Subscribers

Subscribers are the recipients of your notifications. Each subscriber has a unique subscriberId — typically your application’s user ID.

Create
Retrieve
Update
Delete
Bulk Create

await novu.subscribers.create({
  subscriberId: "user-123",         // required
  email: "jane@example.com",
  firstName: "Jane",
  lastName: "Doe",
  phone: "+15551234567",
  data: { plan: "pro" },            // custom key-value data
});

const subscriber = await novu.subscribers.retrieve("user-123");

await novu.subscribers.patch(
  { firstName: "Jane", data: { plan: "enterprise" } },
  "user-123"
);

await novu.subscribers.delete("user-123");

Create up to 500 subscribers in one request:

await novu.subscribers.createBulk({
  subscribers: [
    { subscriberId: "user-1", email: "alice@example.com", firstName: "Alice" },
    { subscriberId: "user-2", email: "bob@example.com", firstName: "Bob" },
  ],
});

Topics are named groups of subscribers for group-based notification targeting:

// Create a topic
await novu.topics.create({ key: "engineering-team", name: "Engineering Team" });

// Add subscribers
await novu.topics.subscriptions.create(
  { subscriptions: ["user-1", "user-2", "user-3"] },
  "engineering-team"
);

Inbox Integration

Add an in-app Inbox to your web application. The Inbox provides a bell icon, notification feed, read/archive management, and real-time WebSocket updates.

React
Next.js
Vanilla JS

npm install @novu/react

import { Inbox } from "@novu/react";

function App() {
  return (
    <Inbox
      applicationIdentifier="YOUR_NOVU_APP_ID"
      subscriberId="subscriber-123"
      subscriberHash="HMAC_HASH"  // Required if HMAC encryption is enabled
    />
  );
}

npm install @novu/nextjs

// components/NotificationInbox.tsx
"use client"; // Required for App Router

import { Inbox } from "@novu/nextjs";

export function NotificationInbox() {
  return (
    <Inbox
      applicationIdentifier={process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_NOVU_APP_ID!}
      subscriberId="subscriber-123"
      subscriberHash="HMAC_HASH"
    />
  );
}

npm install @novu/js

import { Novu } from "@novu/js";

const novu = new Novu({
  applicationIdentifier: "YOUR_NOVU_APP_ID",
  subscriberId: "subscriber-123",
});

HMAC Authentication is required in production to prevent subscriber impersonation. Generate the hash server-side:

import { createHmac } from "crypto";

const subscriberHash = createHmac("sha256", process.env.NOVU_SECRET_KEY!)
  .update(subscriberId)
  .digest("hex");

Manage Preferences

Novu uses a two-level preference system: workflow defaults and subscriber overrides (set by end users). Workflow-level defaults: Workflow level defaults can be configured in the Novu Dashboard. To do so, click on the workflow you want to configure and then click on the Manage Preferences option. Subscriber-level overrides:

Workflow level
Global level

await novu.subscribers.preferences.update(
  {
    workflowId: "weekly-newsletter",
    channels: { email: false, inApp: true },
  },
  "subscriber-123"
);

await novu.subscribers.preferences.update(
  {
    channels: { email: false, inApp: true },
  },
  "subscriber-123"
);

Preference resolution order (most specific wins):

Subscriber workflow preference
Subscriber global preference
Workflow default
System default (all channels enabled)

The Inbox component includes a built-in Preferences panel accessible via the settings icon, or use <Preferences /> as a standalone component. For additional help, check the Novu documentation or contact us at support@novu.co.

​What are Agent Skills?

​Prerequisites

​Setup

​Available Skills

​Quick Routing

​Example prompts

​Core skills

​Additional skills

​Common Combinations

​SDK Overview

​Skill Reference

​Trigger Notification

​Manage Subscribers

​Inbox Integration

​Manage Preferences

What are Agent Skills?

Prerequisites

Setup

Available Skills

Quick Routing

Example prompts

Core skills

Additional skills

Common Combinations

SDK Overview

Skill Reference

Trigger Notification

Manage Subscribers

Inbox Integration

Manage Preferences