Email

What it is. One envelope for everything your app sends. Once a domain is verified on the Domains page with a purpose of email or both, every email leaves as <word>@yourdomain and a customer who answers reaches your Inbox. Three sender words live on the domain's page in the console: account for sign-in codes and account notices, support for the address people write to and the answers you send, news for the notifications your server and your relays send.

What it does. Sends a sign-in code to anyone who signs in. Sends a plain-text notification to one of your app's own people when your server calls notify() or a relay runs email_person, from the news word, with a footer naming why it arrived, at most five event emails per person per day and two hundred per app per hour. Sends an account notice, kind: "account", outside the per-person cap, from the account word. Keeps every send in your Inbox as a conversation, and when receiving is verified, lands the customer's reply in the same thread labelled by the word they answered. Sends your Inbox answer from the support word. Makes a send at-most-once through retries when you give it a key.

What it does not. Does not send from a Gemmein address once you have a domain: until one is verified, notify() and email_person are refused 409 sender_domain_required, nothing leaves, no cap is spent, and the same key sends once you verify. Does not address an email to a string: the recipient is a person id, and someone who never signed in cannot be emailed. Does not send HTML, a template or a campaign. Does not send a no-reply: every kind can be answered. Does not touch the mailbox on your apex: receiving lives on mail.yourdomain unless you choose the apex, and the customer sees your apex on the From line either way. Does not retry a send from a Gemmein address when your provider refuses yours: you get 502 send_failed and may retry.

Needs something else when. You want a newsletter or an announcement to everyone at once → this is a notification, not a campaign, and broadcasts are not a Gemmein feature. You want rich HTML → send it from your own tool. You want to email someone who has never signed in → they must sign in first; a secret key addresses people, not addresses. Your sign-in codes arrive as <App name> (via Gemmein) → that is the one email Gemmein sends on your behalf before a domain is verified; add the domain with a purpose of email and the code arrives from your account word.

Example. An order ships; your server tells the person.

import { gemmeinServer } from "@gemmein/sdk";
const server = gemmeinServer(process.env.GEMMEIN_SECRET_KEY);

await server.notify(order.ownerUserId, {
  subject: "Your poster is on its way",
  text: "It left the studio this morning. Reply to this email if it hasn't arrived by Friday.",
  key: `shipped:${order.id}`,
});
// → { sent: true, id, threadId, replyRail: true }