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CakePHP Middleware Integration with Email and SMS Services for Automated Notification Functionality

M66 2025-06-29

Introduction

In modern web applications, notification functionality is crucial. Whether it’s user registration, password resets, or order updates, notifications are an integral part of user experience. This article explains how to use CakePHP middleware to integrate email and SMS services for automated notifications.

Environment Setup

First, make sure that you have correctly installed and configured the CakePHP framework. You will also need valid API keys from your email and SMS service providers. In this example, we will use Mailgun for email services and Twilio for SMS services.

Configure Email Service

In CakePHP, we can configure Mailgun’s email service by setting up the SMTP settings in the config/app.php file. Below is an example configuration for Mailgun:

// app.php
'EmailTransport' => [
    'default' => [
        'className' => 'CakeMailerTransportMailgunTransport',
        'apiKey' => 'YOUR_MAILGUN_API_KEY',
        'domain' => 'YOUR_MAILGUN_DOMAIN',
        'url' => 'YOUR_MAILGUN_API_URL',
    ],
],

Replace YOUR_MAILGUN_API_KEY, YOUR_MAILGUN_DOMAIN, and YOUR_MAILGUN_API_URL with your actual values.

Configure SMS Service

For SMS, we will use Twilio’s API. In CakePHP, you can configure Twilio settings in the config/app.php file like this:

// app.php
'Twilio' => [
    'sid' => 'YOUR_TWILIO_SID',
    'token' => 'YOUR_TWILIO_TOKEN',
    'sender' => 'YOUR_TWILIO_PHONE_NUMBER',
],

Similarly, replace YOUR_TWILIO_SID, YOUR_TWILIO_TOKEN, and YOUR_TWILIO_PHONE_NUMBER with the actual values.

Create Middleware

Now, let’s create a middleware file called NotificationMiddleware.php to handle the notification functionality. The file should be placed in the src/Middleware directory:

// src/Middleware/NotificationMiddleware.php
namespace AppMiddleware;

use CakeMailerMailerAwareTrait;
use CakeMailerEmail;
use TwilioRestClient;

class NotificationMiddleware
{
    use MailerAwareTrait;

    public function __invoke($request, $response, $next)
    {
        // Code to execute before the next middleware

        // Send Email
        $this->getMailer('Default')->send('notification', [$data]);

        // Send SMS
        $twilio = new Client(getenv('TWILIO_SID'), getenv('TWILIO_TOKEN'));
        $twilio->messages->create(
            $phoneNumber,
            [
                'from' => getenv('TWILIO_SENDER'),
                'body' => $message,
            ]
        );

        // Code to execute after the next middleware
        return $next($request, $response);
    }
}

In this code, we use CakePHP’s MailerAwareTrait to send an email. We also use Twilio’s API to send an SMS. 'notification' refers to the email template we created in the Mailers directory, and $data is the data passed to the email template.

Register Middleware

To make the middleware work, we need to register it in the config/bootstrap.php file. Here’s how:

// config/bootstrap.php
use AppMiddlewareNotificationMiddleware;
use CakeHttpMiddlewareQueue;

$middlewareQueue = new MiddlewareQueue();
$middlewareQueue->add(new NotificationMiddleware());

// Set the new middlewareQueue
$application->setMiddleware($middlewareQueue);

This code registers NotificationMiddleware in the application’s middleware queue.

Conclusion

Using CakePHP middleware, you can easily integrate email and SMS services to implement automated notification functionality. The code examples provided in this article can help you implement similar functionality in your own projects. You can also extend and customize these codes according to your specific needs.

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