Topics

In Novu, a topic represents a collection of subscribers. It is used to trigger a workflow to many subscribers at once. Instead of triggering a workflow for each individual subscriber, you can trigger it once for a topic. Novu automatically sends the message to every subscriber in that topic.

Topics make it easier to model shared audiences. This helps decouple your notification logic from direct user targeting while preserving per-subscriber preferences and personalization.

How topics work in Novu

When a workflow is triggered to a topic:

• Novu looks up all subscribers currently assigned to that topic.
• A unique workflow execution is created for each subscriber.
• Each subscriber’s preferences, delivery channels, and personalization are still applied individually.

This means that even when broadcasting to a large group, messages remain tailored and respectful of each recipient’s configuration.

Topics are dynamic

Topics reflect real-time relationships in your system. You can add or remove subscribers at any time, and a single subscriber can belong to multiple topics simultaneously.

Examples of dynamic groupings include:

• Users watching a discussion thread
• Members of a temporary support channel
• All users affected by a new feature release

Topics help you model and manage these types of shifting audiences without hardcoding targeting logic.

Topic identity and structure

Each topic is uniquely identified by a topicKey, a permanent reference defined by your application. While a human-readable name can be added for clarity, the topicKey is used programmatically to assign subscribers and trigger workflows.

Topic keys must be unique within an environment and cannot be changed after creation. You can reuse the same topic keys across different environments like staging and production.

If a topic does not exist when a subscriber is added to it, Novu will create it on the fly, simplifying integration with your application logic.

Topics vs. individual targeting

Topics are an optional abstraction. You can still target specific subscribers directly when needed. The benefit of topics lies in simplifying group delivery for use cases where the audience changes over time or is not known in advance.

They complement, not replace, subscriber-level targeting, giving you flexibility and control over how notifications are sent at scale.