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Severity & Critical

severity and critical are two independent workflow-level dials. Most workflows set neither.

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Severity

ValueMeaningWhen to use
unsetNo prioritizationDefault. Use for the vast majority of workflows.
LOWInformational, no urgencyMarketing nudges, low-priority lifecycle.
MEDIUMWorth surfacingMentions, light alerts.
HIGH”Deal with this today”Payment failed, trial expiring tomorrow, KYC required.
Severity is purely visual — it does not change preferences, digest, or delivery. It only affects how the Inbox renders the notification (color, glow, bell color), and informs the digest skip rule below.
See inbox-integration/SKILL.md (“Severity styling”) for the visual mapping (colorSeverityHigh, severityHigh__notificationBar, etc.).

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Critical

critical: true is the runtime override. When set:
  • Subscriber preferences are bypassed. The notification is delivered even if the subscriber disabled the channel.
  • Digest is skipped. Each trigger delivers immediately; no aggregation.
  • No delays. All steps run as fast as possible.
  • All available channels fire in parallel (Push still gated by subscriber.isOnline == false).
Reserve critical: true for must-deliver events:
  • Account suspended / blocked
  • Security alert (new device login, suspicious activity)
  • Forgot password / OTP delivery
  • Legal or compliance notices
A workflow can be critical: true with severity unset — the two dials don’t depend on each other.

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readOnly vs critical — the trap

These are easy to confuse. They control different things:
FlagWhere it livesWhat it does
preferences.all.readOnly: trueWorkflow’s preference defaultsHides the workflow from the Preferences UI. Subscribers can’t toggle channels for it.
critical: trueWorkflow-level flagBypasses preferences, digest, and delays at runtime. Delivers regardless of opt-out.
In practice you usually want critical: true (forces delivery). readOnly: true alone just removes the toggle from the UI but does not override existing subscriber overrides. See manage-preferences/SKILL.md for the resolution order.

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Behavior Matrix

ScenarioPreferences applied?Digest runs?Delays applied?Inbox styling
severity unset, critical: falseyesyesyesdefault
severity: HIGH, critical: falseyesnoyeshigh
severity: HIGH, critical: truenononohigh
severity unset, critical: truenononodefault
Digest is automatically skipped when severity: HIGH or critical: true.

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Picking the Right Combination

Use caseseveritycritical
Order confirmationunsetfalse
Comment on your postunsetfalse
Payment failedHIGHfalse
Trial expiring tomorrowHIGHfalse
Account suspended (KYC required)HIGHtrue
Forgot password / OTPunsettrue
Security alertHIGHtrue
Marketing / weekly newsletterunsetfalse

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Common Pitfalls

  1. Setting severity: HIGH doesn’t make the workflow critical — it still respects preferences and runs delays. Add critical: true if you need bypass.
  2. critical: true doesn’t auto-set severity — set severity: HIGH explicitly if you also want the high-severity Inbox styling.
  3. Don’t mark marketing workflows critical — bypassing preferences for promotional content damages trust and is a deliverability risk.
  4. readOnly: true won’t force delivery — it only hides the workflow toggle. Use critical: true to actually force delivery.

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See Also