Pushover connection

Credentials

Anchor requires a Pushover application API token and the user or group key before it can deliver Notifications.
Credentials are optional during onboarding, owner-specific, and encrypted at rest.

Without credentials, you can browse Anchor, preview schedules, and create paused Automation drafts.
Connect both credentials from Settings before activating Automations, using Trigger now, or creating direct Notifications.

You can replace or clear credentials from Settings.
Every Automation must be paused before credentials can be cleared.
Clearing credentials cancels current Notifications and provider work while preserving Automation definitions and delivery history.
Anchor never returns the stored secrets through its API.

Configure sounds on iPhone

Pushover cannot bypass an iPhone’s Ring/Silent switch until you grant its optional Critical Alerts permission. If you normally leave your iPhone silenced, complete this setup before relying on Important or Emergency notifications:

1. Open the Pushover app and open its settings.
2. Enable Critical Alerts for High Priority if Important notifications should make one audible alert while the iPhone is silenced.
3. Enable Critical Alerts for Emergency Priority so Emergency notifications can make an audible repeating alarm while the iPhone is silenced.
4. Approve the iOS Critical Alerts permission when prompted.
5. Set the Critical Alert volume in Pushover. This volume is separate from the iPhone’s current alert volume.
6. Open iPhone Settings → Apps → Pushover → Notifications and confirm that Allow Notifications, Sounds, and Critical Alerts are enabled.

These options are not enabled by default. Pushover documents how its iOS Critical Alerts bypass the mute switch and Focus modes. If you use an Apple Watch, remember that iOS may deliver a notification to the watch instead of the iPhone.

Routine notifications still follow the device’s ordinary sound settings. Critical Alerts only change the behavior of the Pushover priorities you enable.

Pushover quiet hours are not Anchor’s quiet period

Pushover quiet hours control how a message that has already reached Pushover is presented. Routine messages are delivered silently; Important and Emergency messages can bypass those hours.

Anchor’s quiet period is a do-not-deliver window. Anchor holds Routine and Important notifications until the period ends, so an Important notification never reaches Pushover during that time. Emergency bypasses Anchor’s restriction.

Use Pushover quiet hours when messages should arrive immediately but ordinary notifications may be silent. Use Anchor’s quiet period when Routine and Important notifications should wait until morning. The automations guide includes a complete comparison.

Choose an urgency

Urgency controls how forcefully the device presents a notification. It is separate from whether Anchor asks you to acknowledge or complete it.

Urgency	Device behavior	Good examples
Routine	An ordinary notification that follows device settings and Pushover quiet hours.	Take vitamins, review tomorrow’s calendar, log a habit, or complete a flexible household task.
Important	Each delivery is one high-priority interruption. It bypasses Pushover quiet hours and can make sound through iPhone silent mode when Critical Alerts for High Priority is enabled. Pushover does not continuously alarm, although Anchor may send a later follow-up when the automation requires acknowledgment or completion.	Leave for an appointment, take time-sensitive medication, check food in the oven, or respond to a deadline that is useful only if noticed promptly.
Emergency	A persistent alarm that Pushover repeats until acknowledged or until its retry window expires. Critical Alerts for Emergency Priority allows it to sound through iPhone silent mode.	A security alarm, water leak, server outage, or another situation that must keep demanding attention.

Use Routine when responding 30–60 minutes later would still be acceptable. Use Important when the notification loses value if it is not noticed immediately. Use Emergency only when repeated alarms are appropriate.

Important and Emergency still depend on the device being online, permitted to receive Pushover notifications, and configured for audible alerts. A successful provider response cannot prove that a person heard the sound.

Verify the setup

Use Send test notification in Anchor Settings after saving credentials.
This confirms the credentials and delivery path, but testing is recommended rather than required and does not verify Important or Emergency sound behavior.

To verify sound behavior, create temporary Important and Emergency automations and use Trigger now:

1. Silence the iPhone as you normally would.
2. Trigger the Important automation and confirm that it makes one sound.
3. Trigger the Emergency automation and confirm that it repeats with sound.
4. Acknowledge the Emergency notification in Pushover and confirm that repetition stops.
5. Delete the temporary automations after testing.

Delivery behavior

Anchor records each provider request before sending it. Accepted deliveries may include a Pushover receipt that Anchor checks until Pushover reports acknowledgment, expiry, or cancellation.

Provider timeouts are treated as ambiguous: Anchor does not assume that a timed-out request was rejected. Its retry and reconciliation behavior avoids fabricating acknowledgments.

Automated tests use local fakes and never contact Pushover.