Inbucket

Catch outbound email in a local Inbucket instance while you develop. Use it for the welcome email or password-reset flow before you point at a production provider.

Quick start

Start Inbucket (SMTP 2500, UI 9000):

docker run -d --rm --name inbucket -p 9000:9000 -p 2500:2500 -p 1100:1100 inbucket/inbucket

import { createMailer } from "sently/mailer";
import { InbucketTransport } from "sently/transports/inbucket";

const inbucket = new InbucketTransport();
const mailer = await createMailer({ transport: inbucket });

await mailer.send({
  from: "dev@example.com",
  to: "you@example.com",
  subject: "Hello",
  text: "Captured by Inbucket",
});

const mailbox = inbucket.mailboxForAddress("you@example.com");
const inbox = await inbucket.listMailbox(mailbox);
console.log(inbox[0]?.subject);

Configuration

provider is "inbucket". verify() checks SMTP; close() closes the socket adapter. webUrl is the UI base (same as apiUrl).

Features

Pick a branch. Channel send goes through mailer; everything else is called on inbucket. Inbucket is mailbox-centric — pass a mailbox name (or derive it with mailboxForAddress).

await mailer.send({
  from: "dev@example.com",
  to: "you@example.com",
  subject: "Welcome",
  html: "<h1>Hello</h1>",
  text: "Hello",
});

REST failures throw InbucketError (provider: "inbucket"). Empty mailbox / id arguments throw with status 400.

Troubleshooting

Learn more

• Mailpit — another local SMTP catcher with a different REST shape
• SMTP — generic SMTP when you are not on a catcher
• Preview — write .eml files to disk instead
• Email channel — createMailer contract
• Inbucket REST API — mailbox endpoints on the catcher

Next