In Public Mesh and public location channels, tap a received sender name to append
a qualified mention such as @Alice#7a2f. Names with spaces/punctuation use
braces, for example @{Alice Smith#7a2f}. Display suffixes come from the relevant
public identity; see nicknames. No incompatible wire field or
remote service is added: mentions remain plain text to all clients.
Matching uses the saved base nickname, Unicode NFC normalization and case-insensitive matching. A qualified mention must match a local identity suffix; a different suffix does not trigger bare-name matching. Mesh candidates recognize the local mesh identity and current bridge identity; location candidates use the current channel identity. Legacy bare mentions still match the base and may notify multiple devices with that nickname. Identity rotation changes the suffix; use a recent sender label. Partial words and email addresses do not match. A rename affects future alerts, without rewriting history. Public received bubbles mentioning you have an accent outline and Mentioned you label even with notifications disabled.
Enable Settings → Notify when mentioned and grant OS notification permission. It defaults off and applies to both public chat types. Private-message alerts are not part of this setting. Permission denial does not silently enable it; message receipt and visual highlighting continue independently.
Alerts are local OS notifications generated after a message reaches the running app. Previews contain only Outlink and a generic mesh/location mention notice; no sender name, nickname, message text or area code is included. OS permission, channel sound settings, Do Not Disturb and OS presentation policies still apply. A notification opens the application; it does not automatically reconnect or join another channel.
Android can receive while backgrounded only when the existing background connectivity mode retains a joined mesh and its connections. Location-only sessions still pause. iOS currently pauses its JavaScript messaging engine in the background. Neither platform gains delivery after force-stop/process death or remote wake-up through this feature. A fresh native APK/IPA build is required.
Only new incoming public messages no more than 90 seconds old (up to 60 seconds of future clock skew) are candidates. History restoration, private messages, self messages, blocked mesh peers, duplicate relay/radio events, and stale replay do not trigger alerts. Candidate processing is serial, bounded to 32 queued items and 512 deduplication keys, and rate-limited to one alert per ten seconds across channels. Additional alerts inside that window are suppressed; their messages and highlights remain visible. Native failures never discard a message.
Disabling the option drains pending submissions and attempts to clear only mention alerts, preserving the Android connectivity notification. Failed native cleanup does not restore the disabled preference. Identity wipe invalidates pending candidates, waits for pending submissions, and attempts native alert cleanup before erasing preferences/data. A native cleanup failure does not block identity/key erasure. Local notification bodies are intentionally generic.
The platform port owns permissions, presentation and cleanup. Chat services pass new incoming messages to the shared mention service; UI owns translated copy. Only selected local Expo notification APIs are imported, avoiding its barrel’s remote token registration effects. A configuration plugin removes APNs and remote notification background mode and disables FCM/analytics automatic initialization. No push tokens are requested or uploaded and no push backend is configured.
Automated checks cover matching boundaries/Unicode, both live receive paths, permission denial, opt-out, deduplication, rate limits, stale/history exclusions, wipe races, local Android/iOS scheduling, cleanup isolation, and generated native configuration. Physical-device/native notification behavior remains unverified.
Tap received message text in Public Mesh, location channels, private conversations or private Bluetooth groups to append the sender mention to the current draft and focus the message box. Existing draft text is preserved; tapping does not send. The mention uses the visible nickname, including its four-character discriminator only for active duplicates. In Nearby and Location conversations, long-press opens the message actions menu, including Copy message. Group text retains native selection. Tapping your own messages does not insert a mention. Public sender labels retain their existing shortcut. This does not enable private/group mention notifications.
Incoming Nearby DMs now surface in an Unread Nearby messages strip on the main screen, including while Location channels is selected. Tap a sender button to open that private conversation directly. Contacts also shows per-sender unread counts. These counts use received messages in the bounded loaded history window, not a full archive-wide count. Blocked contacts do not appear. Opening a private thread marks its loaded messages read only while the screen is focused and the app is in the foreground; background receipt and Settings do not mark them read.
Enable Settings → Notify for private messages for optional local OS alerts. This is independent of the public mention setting and defaults off. Android uses a private-message notification channel separate from mentions. Previews say only that a private message arrived in Nearby or Location channels; names, content and contact identifiers are omitted. Tapping an OS notification opens the app; use its unread sender shortcut to open the conversation. Existing OS permission, sound, background and process-lifetime limits above still apply. This adds no remote push or wake-up service.
Only newly accepted private message callbacks trigger DM alerts, including Location-channel DMs, courier and internet delivery to mesh contacts. Delayed delivery may legitimately contain an old sender timestamp, so it is not rejected merely for age. History hydration, read/outgoing/public messages and duplicates do not create alerts. The DM queue is bounded to 32 candidates, 512 deduplication keys and one alert per ten seconds; additional messages remain unread without extra alerts. OS failures do not affect message storage. Disabling DM alerts clears only that category; full identity erasure invalidates and drains all categories before clearing local data. The separate background Nearby option below also covers joined private groups.
Location DMs have an Unread Location messages sender strip visible from either main tab, plus unread counts on Location private-conversation buttons. A shortcut opens the matching private thread in the currently loaded area, leaving any area edit form. The proven conversation root groups rotated sender keys together; expired/blocked private threads do not contribute unread indicators. Names use the existing private-message identity label, without assuming a public nickname is an authenticated private identity. Like Nearby, counts cover the bounded loaded history window; other areas are not aggregated into a global inbox. With private messaging active, only a focused foreground private thread sends read receipts; Settings and background receipt leave messages unread. Offline history retains its unread state until private messaging is active again.
One private-message notification preference covers both transports. Existing Nearby notification choices are preserved; users who already enabled them now also receive Location DM alerts. The queue/rate limit is shared, with deduplication scoped by transport and area so identical message IDs in different scopes do not collide. Location notifications enter only through the new authenticated incoming message hook, after persistence; receipt/status updates and history restoration do not notify. Existing location internet consent and platform lifecycle limits remain: notifications do not start a connection or wake a stopped application.
OS alerts are suppressed for the exact conversation currently focused in the foreground: Public Mesh, the selected location public channel, or the selected Nearby/Location DM. Group background alerts obey the same rule for an open joined group conversation. A mounted screen in the background is not visible. Other conversations can still alert according to their preferences while the app is open. Arrival queues recheck visibility after asynchronous preference reads and again before native scheduling; opening Settings does not mark a chat read.
Red dots on Nearby and Location channels aggregate unread activity. Public Mesh, area, DM sender and group buttons identify the affected conversation. Public/group dots track accepted incoming arrivals in memory for the running session, are bounded to 128 scopes, expire with six-hour message retention, and clear when that conversation is viewed in the foreground. They do not rebuild unread public history on cold launch. DM counts and dots retain the existing persisted delivery/read behavior. Visual indicators work without notification permission or alert preferences. Clear local history clears these transient dots; identity erasure resets visibility and indicators as well as notification preferences.
Android Settings offers Notify for all Nearby messages in background under Keep connectivity active while in background; Appearance follows these controls. The option defaults off, requests OS notification permission, and can be changed only with background connectivity enabled on a supported Android native build. Its preference is remembered if connectivity is temporarily disabled, but it takes effect only while the app is backgrounded and the native connectivity service is actually running. It never starts that service or joins a mesh by itself.
While effective, ordinary incoming Public Mesh messages, Nearby DMs (including internet delivery to a mesh contact), and messages in joined Bluetooth groups produce generic local alerts even with the separate mention/DM switches off. Cashu frames, outgoing messages, duplicate messages, history hydration, blocked senders and group invitations do not generate these alerts. Public messages keep the existing 90-second freshness filter against replay; delayed private/group messages follow their existing accepted-delivery/history freshness bounds. Location channels retain their own mention/DM preferences; this is not an all-public location alert switch. A public mention produces one Nearby alert, not two.
This mode uses a third Android channel and native cleanup category. Previews omit names, content, contact keys, group names and area codes. Ordinary mention/DM alerts retain their ten-second sound limit; all-Nearby mode removes that time limit while retaining bounded 32-item queues and 512-key deduplication per pipeline. Under an extreme burst, alerts may be dropped without discarding messages or unread state. OS presentation policies and background process/radio limits still apply. Full identity erasure drains all queues and attempts cleanup of all three categories; it preserves no all-Nearby preference. Automated checks cover visibility, background service gating, opt-out, groups, generic previews and wipe cancellation; no new physical-device notification test was performed for this change.