This is a client library for Apple's push notification service. It is not the first such library for Python, but, as is often the way, the existing options didn't quite meet our needs:

1. No dependencies (other than six).
2. Fire and forget. APNs is a quirky binary protocol that frequently requires reconnecting to the service and re-sending notifications after an error.
3. Robust. We don't do quick and dirty here. Readability, tests, and documentation are not optional.

An APNs client is by nature stateful. The default apns-worker backend uses Python threads to asynchronously process a queue of messages to send to the service. Most users will want to maintain a global ApnsManager instance to process messages. Note that if your own program is threaded, you may need to take care to create this global instance safely.

from apns_worker import ApnsManager

apns = None

def init_apns(key_path, cert_path):
    """ Call this once at program init time. """
    global apns
    apns = ApnsManager(key_path, cert_path)

def send_badge(token, badge=1):
    """ Badge the app on a single device. """
    apns.send_aps([token], badge=badge)