Broadcast Feature Notification

Add a notification that appears in the "What's New" bell icon for all users.

Process

Step 1: Analyze PR Changes

Run these commands to understand the changes:

git diff main...HEAD
gh pr view --json title,body,number

Step 2: Determine Notification Type

Based on changes, classify as one of:

• Feature - New functionality added
• Improvement - Enhancement to existing functionality
• BugFix - Bug or issue fixed

Step 3: Create EF Core Migration

Create two files in src/PraxisNote.Infrastructure/Migrations/Data/FeatureNotifications/:

Note: The Data/ subfolder separates data migrations from structural schema migrations.

Naming: YYYYMMDDHHMMSS_AddNotification{PascalCaseTitle}.cs

Use current UTC timestamp (e.g., 20260117120000 for Jan 17, 2026 12:00:00 UTC).

Migration file (YYYYMMDDHHMMSS_AddNotification{Title}.cs):

using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Migrations;

#nullable disable

namespace PraxisNote.Infrastructure.Migrations.Data.FeatureNotifications
{
    public partial class AddNotification{PascalCaseTitle} : Migration
    {
        protected override void Up(MigrationBuilder migrationBuilder)
        {
            migrationBuilder.Sql("""
                INSERT INTO "FeatureNotifications" ("Type", "Title", "Summary", "IssueUrl", "CreatedAt")
                VALUES (
                    '{Type}',
                    '{Title}',
                    '{Summary}',
                    'https://github.com/garethbaumgart/praxis-note/pull/{PRNumber}',
                    '{ISO8601Timestamp}'
                );
                """);
        }

        protected override void Down(MigrationBuilder migrationBuilder)
        {
            migrationBuilder.Sql("""
                DELETE FROM "FeatureNotifications"
                WHERE "Title" = '{Title}';
                """);
        }
    }
}

Designer file (YYYYMMDDHHMMSS_AddNotification{Title}.Designer.cs):

• Copy from the most recent migration's Designer.cs in the parent Migrations folder
• Update the [Migration("...")] attribute to match your new migration name
• Update the partial class name to match
• Update the namespace to PraxisNote.Infrastructure.Migrations.Data.FeatureNotifications

Step 4: Build and Restart

# Build to verify migration compiles
cd src && dotnet build

# Restart API to trigger migration
docker restart praxisnote-api-dev

Step 5: Verify

# Check migration was applied
docker exec praxisnote-db-dev psql -U praxisnote -d praxisnote -c \
  "SELECT \"Id\", \"Title\" FROM \"FeatureNotifications\" ORDER BY \"Id\" DESC LIMIT 3;"

Writing Guidelines

Title:

• Short, action-oriented (max 50 chars)
• Examples: "Task search and filtering", "Faster task archiving", "Equal column heights"

Summary:

• One sentence describing the user benefit (max 200 chars)
• Focus on what users can now DO, not technical details
• Examples:
  • "Sort tasks within each column by date created, due date, or priority."
  • "Kanban columns now maintain equal heights on desktop for a cleaner layout."

When to Skip

Do NOT create a notification for:

• Internal refactoring with no user-visible changes
• Test-only changes
• Documentation-only changes
• CI/workflow changes
• Dependency updates (unless they fix a user-facing issue)