Email Notifications

Email notifications

An email when something needs you: a new contact, a hot lead, a callback request, a visitor waiting for a person, a new job or booking. You bring the email service you already use (Resend, Postmark, SendGrid, Brevo or any other with a send API) and its key; HelpPuff writes each email and sends it through that service. Everyone on the team chooses which emails they get.

No connector per provider: the service is one request you can see and change, so a provider changing its API never waits for a HelpPuff release.

1. Connect your email service (an admin, once)

Settings → Notifications → Email service:

1. Service: Resend, Postmark, SendGrid or Brevo, or Another service.
2. Send from: an address on a domain you verified in that service.
3. API key (Postmark: the server token). Stored encrypted, never shown again.
4. Send me a test, then Save.

Or from the project folder:

helppuff secret set RESEND_API_KEY
helppuff email set --preset resend --from 'HelpPuff <assistant@yourdomain.com>' --key '${RESEND_API_KEY}'
helppuff email test --to you@yourdomain.com

--preset is resend, postmark, sendgrid or brevo. Pause emails (helppuff email pause) stops every email until you resume; Remove keeps everyone's choices for when you connect one again.

Another service

Choose Another service, or Edit the request on a preset, and write the request its "send an email" API wants: the method, the address, headers (put the key in a secret one) and the body. HelpPuff fills in:

Value	What it is
{{email.to}}	One person's address: each person gets their own email
{{email.subject}}	The subject, like Callback requested: Ada
{{email.text}}	The message as plain text, with a link to the dashboard
{{email.html}}	The same message as HTML, everything a visitor wrote escaped

The request must use {{email.to}} and {{email.text}} (or {{email.html}}). For example, a service that takes JSON with an X-Api-Key:

helppuff email set --url https://api.example-mail.com/v1/send \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --header 'X-Api-Key: ${MAIL_API_KEY}' \
  --body '{"from": "assistant@yourdomain.com", "to": "{{email.to}}", "subject": "{{email.subject}}", "text": "{{email.text}}"}'

Values are escaped for JSON in a JSON body, so nothing a visitor types can break out of its field.

2. Choose your emails (everyone)

Settings → Notifications → Email me when, ticked for yourself only:

Email	When
New contact	Someone left their name, email or phone in the chat
Hot lead	A chat ended and the AI rated the lead hot, with its summary and next step (five minutes after the chat went quiet)
Callback request	A visitor asked to be called back
A visitor wants a person	Someone asked for the team in [[live chat
A live chat nobody took	Nobody took it in time; the visitor got the callback form
A chat given to me	Someone on the team gave you a conversation (only you get it)
New job	A [[job
New booking, Booking cancelled	An [[appointment
A question to answer	A visitor asked something your knowledge base does not cover ([[answer it
AI budget used up	Today's AI budget ran out (admins only)

Nothing is ticked until you choose. Members choose too: they see this page even with live chat off. Someone removed from the team gets nothing more. Each email links to the conversation, job, callbacks or calendar.

Check it

Send me a test sends one now and says what the service answered. The Email service card shows when the last email went and, if it failed, why. A 401 or 403 is usually the key; a 403 or 422 about the sender means its domain (or Postmark's sender signature) is not verified yet. Emails are sent after the visitor's reply, never in its way, and HelpPuff's logs keep only the kind of email and the status, never an address or what it said.

Other channels

Slack, Microsoft Teams, SMS or your CRM want their own format: send any event there with a webhook in your own format, or through n8n, Make or Zapier with the signed JSON (Webhooks). For real-time alerts while you work, use the dashboard's notifications and sound, or Telegram.

Back to the dashboard.