mesh-mail — the operator's mail accounts, watched and said on the bus
One module holds the operator's mail accounts, watches them, and says each change of a message on the bus for the
modules the operator grants it to (novox/hq ADR 0359, research 049 document 02). One instance, on the control-node.
Reading is the first stage: accounts of the kind imap, read-only — nothing here flags, moves, deletes or drafts.
Sending is mail_send alone (novox/hq ADR 0361 §2): it sends nothing itself, and reaches an account's outgoing
server only once the operator approves it on a channel that proves who answered.
What it does
- Watches. For each account it keeps one connection: IDLE on the inbox, ended and begun again every two minutes (which proves the server still answers), and a look at every other folder every five minutes. Folders are opened read-only and bodies are peeked, so watching never marks a message seen.
- Indexes. One row per message and folder in its own database (
postgres-database): metadata, flags, the text for search, and the attachments' references. Each attachment is kept once, by its SHA-256, in its bucket (s3-bucket, fromminio). - Says each change. A message added, its flags changed, or removed is said as the event
mail.<account>.message.<added|changed|removed>: account, folder, uid, message id, date, sender, recipients, subject, size, flags and attachment references; never the body, never an attachment's bytes. The events go to the module's own streamMAIL, kept seven days, never to the shared EVENTS stream (novox/hq ADR 0363); a module hears an account's part only when itsconsumesnames mesh-mail and the settinggrantsnames it for that account. The first look at a folder indexes what is there and says nothing: the bus hears what changed since the watch began. The keeper writes each event in the same step as the change it says; the bundle says it through the runtime and removes it once the bus took it.
Its settings, both trusted
accounts — per account name (a lower-case token, which names the account on the bus and its secret):
{"mesh": {"kind": "imap", "address": "<the address>",
"incoming": {"host": "<the IMAP server>", "port": 993, "security": "tls"},
"outgoing": {"host": "<the SMTP server>", "port": 465, "security": "tls"},
"folders": ["optional: the folders watched besides the inbox; every folder when left out"]}}
outgoing is the server mail_send sends through: host, port, and security tls (465, implicit) or starttls
(587). A second imap account on another server is one more entry and one more password; no code changes. user
signs in under another name than the address.
grants — per account, who may read its mail, and who may send from it: a module's name (on every machine),
<machine>.<module>, or person.<name>. Nobody by default. It restricts the stream MAIL on the bus (a person's
entry grants nothing there) and the tools mail_search, mail_read and mail_send — the same check for all three.
The password of an account is the own secret mail-credential-<account>, given at the desk; the mesh never makes one.
Its tools
| Tool | Answers |
|---|---|
mail_accounts |
each account's kind, state and why, when its server last answered, its folders; the address only to a caller granted it |
mail_search |
messages of the accounts the caller is granted, by every word of a query, newest first, no body |
mail_read |
one message's metadata and text, or one attachment's bytes, to a caller granted its account |
mail_health |
healthy; unhealthy naming the account and why (connection down, or no answer for five minutes); waits naming mail-credential-<account> while its password is not given |
mail_send |
raises an ask on the operator channel (the account, the recipients, the subject, the first lines) for a caller granted the account; answers at once with the ask's id. Sends nothing itself |
mail_send_status |
where a send stands, by its ask id: waiting, sent, declined, ended without a choice, or not proven |
The caller is the runtime's word, never an argument. mail_send sends through the account's outgoing server only
once the operator's Approve comes back on a channel that proves who answered, and once: a warrant delivered twice
never sends twice (novox/hq ADR 0361 §2).
Its processes
prepare brings the index's schema to this version's (numbered migrations, and schema.sql for a fresh database).
keep watches the accounts and is judged by its unit. watch judges every minute and is judged by mail_health.