Pair the mobile app & enable mobile push

The MIRA mobile app connects to your MIRA instance — the same server you run for the web UI. Pairing is one scan: no typing the server URL, no re-entering your password. This guide covers pairing a device and, for admins, turning on push delivery to the app via Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM).

Pair a device

1. In the web UI, open Settings → Notifications.
2. Under Pair a mobile device, click Show pairing code. A QR code appears with a countdown.
3. Open the MIRA app on your phone and scan it.

That’s it — the app now knows your server’s address and is signed in as you. The pairing code is single-use and expires after about two minutes; if it lapses before you scan, click Regenerate code. The panel flips to ”✓ Paired” once your phone connects.

How it stays safe

• The pairing secret is generated per request, shown only in your authenticated browser (inside the QR), stored hashed on the server, and consumed on first use — a second attempt to claim the same code fails.
• Repeated bad claim attempts are rate-limited and IP-banned exactly like failed logins.
• The QR also carries your server’s display name and canonical base URL so the app shows the right instance. Set those under server.display_name and server.public_base_url (the latter matters when MIRA is behind a reverse proxy — otherwise the app may be handed an internal address).

Enable mobile push (admins)

Browser and phone Web Push work out of the box. The native app receives push through Firebase Cloud Messaging, which is off by default — with it disabled, nothing about your server changes.

To turn it on:

1. Create a Firebase project and download a service-account JSON with permission to send FCM messages.

2. Put the file somewhere only the MIRA process user can read it.

3. In mira_config.json:

   "notifications": {
     "fcm": {
       "enabled": true,
       "project_id": "your-firebase-project-id",
       "service_account_json_path": "/etc/mira/fcm-service-account.json"
     }
   }

4. Restart MIRA.

The service-account path is treated as a secret — MIRA redacts it when you read config back through the API, and won’t let it be overwritten blindly.

What the app receives

Every proactive notification carries a small, stable metadata envelope so the app can route it to the right Android notification channel:

• type — message, conversation, care, system, or guardian
• severity — high for care/wellbeing alerts, normal otherwise
• title, body, and (when relevant) conversation_id / url

Care and wellbeing alerts are delivered at high Android priority so they aren’t held back; everything else is normal priority.

Test it

Settings → Notifications → Send test push delivers a synthetic notification to every registered device for your account — browsers and paired phones alike. Paired phones show up in the Registered devices list with a 📱 and their device name.