Notification Acknowledgment System #811
Description
1. Summary
The current notification system shows pending invitations in the header dropdown. These notifications cannot be acknowledged or dismissed by the user unless they explicitly accept or reject the invitation.
2. Problem Statement
Current behavior:
- Frontend polls the Invitation API.
- Any pending invitation always appears in the notification dropdown.
- Users cannot acknowledge the notification to hide it.
- Items disappear only when the backend invitation state changes (approve/reject).
Problem:
This leads to:
- Persistent notifications that cannot be cleared.
- Poor UX, especially when the user is aware of the invitation but not ready to act.
- No way to differentiate unseen vs acknowledged notifications.
3. Goals
- Add a user-driven "acknowledge" action.
- Allow dismissible notifications without modifying the main invitation lifecycle.
- Avoid schema-level changes.
- Keep the design backward compatible.
4. Non-Goals
- Changing invitation backend workflow (approve/reject).
- Adding new invitation states or database fields.
- Implementing advanced notification systems (real-time, WebSockets, etc.).