Dual-Channel Watchexec Notifications

Send reliable notifications to both Telegram and Pushover when watchexec detects file changes or process crashes.

Core Pattern

watchexec wrapper script → detect event → notify-script → Telegram + Pushover

wrapper.sh - Monitors process and detects restart reasons

watchexec --restart -- python bot.py

On event, call:

notify-script.sh

Critical Rule: Format Differences

Telegram: HTML mode ONLY

MESSAGE="Alert: file.py"

Escape 3 chars: & → &, < → <, > → >

Pushover: Plain text ONLY

/usr/bin/env bash << 'SKILL_SCRIPT_EOF'

Strip HTML tags before sending

MESSAGE_PLAIN=$(echo "$MESSAGE_HTML" | sed 's/<[^>]*>//g') SKILL_SCRIPT_EOF

Why HTML for Telegram:

Markdown requires escaping 40+ chars (., -, _, etc.) HTML only requires escaping 3 chars (&, <, >) Industry best practice Quick Reference Send to Both Channels /usr/bin/env bash << 'SKILL_SCRIPT_EOF_2'

1. Build HTML message for Telegram

MESSAGE_HTML="File: handler_classes.py"

2. Strip HTML for Pushover

MESSAGE_PLAIN=$(echo "$MESSAGE_HTML" | sed 's/<[^>]*>//g')

3. Send to Telegram with HTML

curl -s -d "chat_id=$CHAT_ID" \ -d "text=$MESSAGE_HTML" \ -d "parse_mode=HTML" \ https://api.telegram.org/bot$BOT_TOKEN/sendMessage

4. Send to Pushover with plain text

curl -s --form-string "message=$MESSAGE_PLAIN" \ https://api.pushover.net/1/messages.json SKILL_SCRIPT_EOF_2

Execution Pattern

Fire-and-forget background notifications (don't block restarts)

"$NOTIFY_SCRIPT" "crash" "$EXIT_CODE" "$INFO_FILE" "$CONTEXT_FILE" &

Validation Checklist

Before deploying:

Using HTML parse mode for Telegram (not Markdown) HTML tags stripped for Pushover (plain text only) HTML escaping applied to all dynamic content (&, <, >) Credentials loaded from env vars/Doppler (not hardcoded) Message archiving enabled for debugging File detection uses stat (not find -newermt) Heredocs use unquoted delimiters for variable expansion Notifications run in background (fire-and-forget) Tested with files containing special chars (_, ., -) Both Telegram and Pushover successfully receiving Summary

Key Lessons:

Always use HTML mode for Telegram (simpler escaping) Always strip HTML tags for Pushover (plain text only) Escape only 3 chars in HTML: & → &, < → <, > → > Archive messages before sending for debugging Use stat for file detection on macOS (not find -newermt) Load credentials from env vars/Doppler (never hardcode) Fire-and-forget background notifications (don't block restarts) Reference Documentation

For detailed information, see:

Telegram HTML - HTML mode formatting and message templates Pushover Integration - API calls and priority levels Credential Management - Doppler, env vars, and keychain patterns Watchexec Patterns - File detection and restart reason detection Common Pitfalls - HTML tags in Pushover, escaping issues, macOS compatibility

Bundled Examples:

examples/notify-restart.sh - Complete dual-channel notification script examples/bot-wrapper.sh - watchexec wrapper with restart detection examples/setup-example.sh - Setup guide and installation steps