folk.zone Wiki

You've loaded an old revision of the document! If you save it, you will create a new version with this data.

====== Email and SMTP ======

Transactional email for folk.zone services: registration confirmations, password resets, opted-in notifications. Getting it wrong means broken signups and spam-folder delivery.

===== Sending Domain =====

Authenticate a dedicated sending subdomain (''mail.folk.zone'') at the DNS provider:

* SPF: ''v=spf1 include:<provider> ~all''
  * DKIM: TXT records provided by the ESP dashboard
  * DMARC: ''v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:dmarc@folk.zone; pct=100''

Send from ''noreply@folk.zone'' with ''Reply-To'' set to a monitored address so people can actually respond.

===== Provider Strategy =====

Resend config shape:

<code>
SMTP_ADDRESS: smtp.resend.com
SMTP_PORT: 587 (STARTTLS)
SMTP_USERNAME: resend
SMTP_PASSWORD: <API key>
SMTP_AUTHENTICATION: plain
</code>

SendGrid's account restrictions are increasingly aggressive on residential IPs. Brevo is the friendlier alternative for indie operators.

===== Registration Spikes =====

Open or semi-open registration can exhaust a 100/day free tier in an hour. Mitigations:

* Enable the app's email queue where it exists (Mastodon and WriteFreely both support rate-limiting outbound mail)
  * Stagger invite sends; do not issue 500 invites at once
  * Monitor the provider dashboard and alert near the daily limit

===== Why Not Self-Hosted SMTP =====

Deliverability from a residential IP is the blocker: PTR records depend on the ISP, and residential ranges are flagged by default. The fix is routing outbound SMTP through a cheap VPS as a smart relay, which reintroduces a monthly cost for marginal gain. Not worth it until paid ESP tiers become the constraint.

===== See Also =====

* [[folkzone:policies|folk.zone Policies]]
  * [[folkzone:start|folk.zone Infrastructure]]
  * [[guides:add_new_service|Adding a New Service]]
  * [[start|Return to wiki home]]

Edit summary

Note: By editing this page you agree to license your content under the following license: CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International