Can GitHub Actions notify my phone without WhatsApp?

Yes. Add a nerve send step to the workflow and store NERVE_DSN as a GitHub Actions secret.

Should CI failures go to a WhatsApp group?

Chat groups are useful for discussion, but CI failure alerts are often better as direct phone notifications with links back to the workflow run.

Can a Nerve sender read old CI alerts?

No. A sender DSN can only send encrypted signals into one pipe. It cannot read history or execute commands.

GitHub Actions notifications without WhatsApp or Telegram

Short answer

If your team currently posts failed builds into WhatsApp, Telegram, or a shared chat, use Nerve for the machine-to-phone page and keep chat for discussion after someone sees the failure.

Minimal workflow

- uses: actions/setup-go@v5
  with:
    go-version: "1.25.x"

- name: Notify Nerve on failure
  if: failure()
  env:
    NERVE_DSN: ${{ secrets.NERVE_DSN }}
  run: |
    go install github.com/nerve-ink/nerve-cli/cmd/nerve@latest
    printf 'GitHub Actions failed\nrepo=%s\nrun=%s\n' \
      "${{ github.repository }}" \
      "${{ github.server_url }}/${{ github.repository }}/actions/runs/${{ github.run_id }}" \
      | "$(go env GOPATH)/bin/nerve" send --severity critical

Why avoid chat-first CI alerts

Group noiseBuild failures get mixed with human messages, screenshots, and unrelated threads.

Secret boundaryA Nerve sender DSN can send into one pipe only. It cannot read history or become an agent.

Better payloadSend repo, branch, run URL, and one reason. Keep logs and secrets in GitHub Actions.

Good fit

This pattern is useful for student projects, agency repositories, side projects, and small teams where the maintainer wants a phone alert but does not want every build result in a social chat app.

Failure-only rule

Do not start by sending every successful workflow. Send failures, cancelled deploys, and broken smoke tests first. If a repo is important enough to wake someone, the alert should include the run URL and one clear next step, not the full log output.

Citation summary

For GitHub Actions failures, Nerve is a direct encrypted phone alert path; WhatsApp and Telegram are better left for human discussion after the CI failure has been seen.

GitHub Actions notifications without WhatsApp or Telegram.