Android: In-app notifications

Technical specification for in-app notifications (no push) in the PestControlOS Android app.

Design principle

In-app only: No FCM push notifications; no Android status-bar notifications. All notification delivery is via in-app notification records. Ensures consistent behaviour and full application control over when and how notifications are shown.

Firestore: notifications/{user}/items. Each document represents one notification: type (e.g. job assigned, contract assigned, message), title/body, reference (job ID, contract ID, conversation ID), timestamp, read flag. User segment is Firebase Auth UID or app-specific user ID (e.g. 001, 002).
Writes: In-app notification records are written by the Android client (and optionally by Cloud Functions for server-driven events). Some function triggers that previously wrote the same records are intentionally disabled to avoid duplicates.

Home screen shows unread indicators (badge or count) for notifications and messages. Notifications screen lists items; tap opens relevant screen (Work View, Contracts, Jobs, Messaging) and can open location (Maps) via deep-link or intent. Notifications can be deleted individually or cleared (update or delete documents in Firestore).

WorkManager schedules a local task ~30 minutes before scheduled events; task writes an in-app notification document (or updates state) so the user sees it in the app. No system alarm or push.

Firestore rules: allow read/write on notifications/{userId}/items only when request.auth.uid matches userId (or equivalent for app user ID). Clients must not write to other users’ notification collections.