Notifications Reference

Dockward sends notifications on significant events — deploys, rollbacks, heal restarts, resource alerts, and critical failures. All channels are optional. Multiple channels can be active simultaneously.

For configuration syntax see Config Reference.

Channels

Discord

Sends a message to a Discord channel via an incoming webhook URL.

"notifications": {
  "discord": {
    "webhook_url": "https://discord.com/api/webhooks/ID/TOKEN"
  }
}

SMTP

Sends an email. username and password are optional for unauthenticated relays.

"notifications": {
  "smtp": {
    "host": "smtp.example.com",
    "port": 587,
    "from": "alerts@example.com",
    "to": "ops@example.com",
    "username": "",
    "password": ""
  }
}

Custom Webhooks

Sends an HTTP request with a templated body. Multiple webhooks can be defined. Header values support $ENV_VAR expansion at runtime — the variable must be present in the environment of the dockward process.

"notifications": {
  "webhooks": [
    {
      "name": "my-webhook",
      "url": "https://example.com/hook",
      "method": "POST",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer $MY_TOKEN",
        "Content-Type": "application/json"
      },
      "body": "{\"service\":\"{{ .Service }}\",\"event\":\"{{ .Event }}\",\"message\":\"{{ .Message }}\"}"
    }
  ]
}

Webhook Template Fields

The body field is rendered as a Go text/template. All fields below are available in every notification:

Field	Type	Description
.Service	string	Service name from config
.Event	string	Event type (see Events table below)
.Message	string	Human-readable notification message
.Reason	string	Additional context for the event, if applicable
.Level	string	Severity level (info, warning, critical)
.OldDigest	string	Previous image digest, populated on deploy and rollback events
.NewDigest	string	New image digest, populated on deploy events
.Container	string	Container name or ID, populated on heal events

Events

Event	Level	Source	Trigger
updated	info	updater	Successful image deploy
rolled_back	warning	updater	Rollback succeeded — previous image restored
rolled_back	critical	updater	Rollback failed — could not retag or compose up failed
compose_drift	info	updater	Compose file changed; redeployed without image pull
started	warning	updater	Containers not found with correct image; compose project started
not_found	warning	updater	Local image not found; suppressed until registry digest changes
error	critical	updater	Persistent poll error (registry unreachable, compose failure)
unhealthy	warning	healer	Container reported unhealthy by Docker
restarting	warning	healer	Auto-heal restart attempt in progress
restarted	warning	healer	Auto-heal restart completed successfully
critical	critical	healer	Restart failed, max restarts exceeded, or container still unhealthy after restart
healthy	info	healer	Container recovered to healthy state
died	critical	healer	Container exited unexpectedly
resource_alert	warning	monitor	CPU or memory threshold exceeded

Webhook Example — GitHub Actions Dispatch

{
  "name": "github-deploy-pipeline",
  "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/myorg/myrepo/actions/workflows/deploy.yml/dispatches",
  "method": "POST",
  "headers": {
    "Authorization": "Bearer $GH_TOKEN",
    "Accept": "application/vnd.github.v3+json"
  },
  "body": "{\"ref\":\"main\",\"inputs\":{\"service\":\"{{ .Service }}\",\"event\":\"{{ .Event }}\"}}"
}