# nomad-cli/houston

Apple Push Notifications; No Dirigible Required

Repository: https://github.com/nomad-cli/houston
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/houston
Homepage: http://nomad-cli.com
Language: Ruby
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: houston, notifications, ruby, cli, nomad, apns
Archived: true
Last push: 2021-06-20T11:02:39+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 10/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5108, "days_push": 1900, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, archived
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2950, forks 224 (observed 2026-08-28T04:07:31.957549+00:00)

## What it is
Houston is a Ruby gem and CLI for sending Apple Push Notifications (APNs) using the legacy binary protocol. It provides both a simple Ruby client API and an `apn` command-line utility.

## Use cases
- send apple push notifications from ruby
- send apns push notification from command line
- push notifications to ios devices
- send push notifications with badge and sound
- queue apns notifications in background jobs

## When to choose
- maintaining a legacy Ruby app already using Houston
- sending notifications to very old APNs setups that still use the binary protocol

## When to avoid
- starting a new project - the legacy APNs binary protocol was shut down in March 2021
- you need the modern APNs2 HTTP/2 protocol - use Apnotic instead
- you need maintained, supported software

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: abandoned
- function: http-client, cli
- domain: mobile-development, developer-tools
- platform: ruby, cli
- tags: apns, push-notifications, ios, apple-push-notifications, unmaintained, command-line, macos

## Member repositories
- nomad-cli/houston (main) score 10

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:31.957549+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T07:32:43.228402+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/nomad-cli/houston (fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:31.957549+00:00, sha 25c7c92f3a87)
  - homepage: http://nomad-cli.com (fetched 2026-08-29T09:47:54.545533+00:00, sha b34958f4f81c)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.