Realtime Updates with Pusher

With Pusher Channels configured, the inbox updates instantly — new messages, assignment changes and notifications appear without a page refresh. Without it, WhatsMax still works; updates just rely on refresh/polling.

1. Create a Pusher app

Sign up at pusher.com and create a Channels app.
Pick the cluster closest to your server (e.g. eu, mt1, ap2).
Open the App Keys page — you need app_id, key, secret and cluster.

The free tier (200k messages/day, 100 concurrent connections) is enough for small deployments.

2. Configure WhatsMax

Fill the Pusher block in .env:

PUSHER_APP_ID=123456
PUSHER_APP_KEY=abcdef123456
PUSHER_APP_SECRET=secret123
PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER=eu

NEXT_PUBLIC_PUSHER_KEY=abcdef123456     # same as PUSHER_APP_KEY
NEXT_PUBLIC_PUSHER_CLUSTER=eu           # same as PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER

NEXT_PUBLIC_* values are baked in at build time

After changing them you must rebuild, not just restart:

npm run build && pm2 restart whatsmax-web

Pusher settings Realtime credentials in the admin panel.

Server-side values can also be managed later from Admin → Configuration → Pusher Settings.

3. Verify

Open the same workspace inbox in two browser windows.
Send an inbound test message (e.g. WhatsApp yourself).
Both windows should show the message within a second, no refresh.

You can also watch events arrive live in the Pusher dashboard's Debug console.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Fix
No realtime, no errors	`NEXT_PUBLIC_*` vars empty at build time — set them and rebuild.
Console WebSocket errors	Wrong cluster, or key/secret mismatch between the four values.
Works locally, not in production	Nginx missing the `Upgrade`/`Connection` headers — see Nginx.