Email configuration

Configure SMTP for local development with Mailpit or a production email provider.

The Fleet Management System sends transactional emails via SMTP using Nodemailer. The SMTP connection is configured through environment variables in packages/backend/.env.

What emails are sent

When a technician submits a vehicle inspection, the backend automatically emails the fleet administrator with:

• Subject: configurable per call site
• Body: vehicle details (brand, model, licence plate), current mileage, and inspection timestamp
• Attachment: a PDF inspection report (inspeccion_<id>.pdf)

No other automated emails are sent by the system at this time.

SMTP environment variables

SMTP_HOST · string · default: "127.0.0.1"

Hostname of the SMTP server. Set to 127.0.0.1 for the local Mailpit container.

SMTP_PORT · number · default: "1025"

SMTP port. Mailpit listens on 1025. Use 587 (STARTTLS) or 465 (TLS) for production providers.

SMTP_SECURE · boolean · default: "false"

Set to true to wrap the connection in TLS from the start (required for port 465). Use false for STARTTLS (port 587) or unencrypted local connections.

SMTP_USER · string

SMTP authentication username. Leave empty when using Mailpit locally — it accepts all connections without credentials.

SMTP_PASS · string

SMTP authentication password. Leave empty when using Mailpit locally.

EMAIL_FROM · string · default: "[e-mail]"

The From address on all outbound emails. Must be a valid address accepted by your SMTP provider in production.

If SMTP_HOST or SMTP_PORT is not set, the email service falls back to a JSON transport that logs messages to stdout instead of sending them. This means emails are silently dropped rather than causing a startup error.

Configuration by environment

Local development

Mailpit is included in the Docker Compose file. It acts as a local SMTP server and provides a web UI to inspect captured emails without sending anything to real addresses.

Start Mailpit:

docker compose up -d mailpit

Mailpit exposes two ports:

• 1025 — SMTP (receives messages from the backend)
• 8025 — Web UI (view captured emails in a browser)

Open http://localhost:8025 to view all emails sent by the application.

packages/backend/.env (default values already work):

SMTP_HOST=127.0.0.1
SMTP_PORT=1025
SMTP_SECURE=false
SMTP_USER=
SMTP_PASS=
EMAIL_FROM=[e-mail]

No changes are required to the default .env.example values for local development.

Production SMTP

Replace the SMTP variables with credentials from your email provider. The example below uses a generic STARTTLS provider (e.g. SendGrid, Mailgun, AWS SES SMTP, or a corporate mail relay):

SMTP_HOST=smtp.your-provider.com
SMTP_PORT=587
SMTP_SECURE=false
SMTP_USER=your-smtp-username
SMTP_PASS=your-smtp-password
EMAIL_FROM=[e-mail]

For providers that require TLS on port 465:

SMTP_HOST=smtp.your-provider.com
SMTP_PORT=465
SMTP_SECURE=true
SMTP_USER=your-smtp-username
SMTP_PASS=your-smtp-password
EMAIL_FROM=[e-mail]

Never commit real SMTP credentials to version control. Use environment-specific secrets management (e.g. Docker secrets, Kubernetes secrets, or a secrets manager) to inject these values at runtime.

Set EMAIL_FROM to an address on a domain you control with a valid SPF and DKIM record to avoid inspection report emails being marked as spam.