Skip to content

Email

Last verified: v2.0

The Email connector enables MEHO to send branded HTML notifications to your team. When MEHO completes an investigation, diagnoses an issue, or needs to escalate a finding, it can compose and send a professional email summary with a link back to the investigation session. Supports multiple email providers: SMTP, SendGrid, Mailgun, Amazon SES, and Generic HTTP.

Authentication

Authentication is provider-specific:

Provider Credential Fields Notes
SMTP smtp_username, smtp_password Standard SMTP credentials. Host, port, and TLS configured separately.
SendGrid api_key SendGrid API key with Mail Send permission
Mailgun api_key, mailgun_domain Mailgun API key + sending domain
Amazon SES ses_access_key, ses_secret_key, ses_region AWS IAM credentials with SES send permission. Default region: us-east-1
Generic HTTP endpoint_url, auth_header, payload_template Custom HTTP endpoint for any email service with a REST API

Setup:

  1. Choose your email provider and gather the required credentials.
  2. Configure the From Email address (the sender address for all emails from this connector).
  3. Set Default Recipients -- a comma-separated list of email addresses that will receive notifications by default.
  4. Optionally set a From Name (defaults to "MEHO").
  5. MEHO sends a test email during connector creation to verify end-to-end delivery.

Provider Selection

  • SMTP works with any email server (Office 365, Gmail, corporate SMTP).
  • SendGrid and Mailgun are purpose-built for transactional email with delivery tracking.
  • Amazon SES is the lowest-cost option for AWS environments.
  • Generic HTTP is the escape hatch for any email service with a REST API.

Operations

MEHO registers 2 operations for Email (1 READ, 1 WRITE):

Operation Trust Level Description
send_email WRITE Send a branded HTML email to the configured default recipients. Provide subject and body in markdown. The connector renders branded HTML with MEHO styling and a session link.
check_status READ Check the delivery status of a previously sent email. Returns status (sent/accepted/failed), timestamp, and error details. This is a DB lookup, not a provider API call.

Branded HTML Output

The send_email operation accepts markdown input and renders it as a professional branded HTML email. The email includes MEHO styling and a link to the investigation session so recipients can view the full context.

Example Queries

Ask MEHO questions like:

  • "Send an email summary of today's incidents to the ops team"
  • "Email the on-call engineer about the disk alert"
  • "Notify the team about the high CPU issue on prod-web-01"
  • "Send a summary of this investigation to the platform team"
  • "Email a post-mortem summary with the root cause findings"
  • "Check the delivery status of the last email I sent"
  • "Send an alert email about the failing health checks"

Topology

Email does not contribute topology entities. It functions as a notification connector -- operators use it to communicate investigation findings and alerts to team members and stakeholders.

Delivery History

MEHO logs every email sent through the connector, tracking:

  • From/To addresses and subject line
  • Provider type and provider-assigned message ID
  • Delivery status: sent, accepted, or failed
  • Error details if delivery failed
  • Timestamp of the delivery attempt

The delivery history is accessible via the MEHO API and can be queried to audit email notifications.

Troubleshooting

SMTP Authentication Failed

Symptom: Connector creation fails with authentication error when using SMTP. Cause: Incorrect SMTP credentials, or the SMTP server requires app-specific passwords (e.g., Gmail with 2FA). Fix: For Gmail, generate an app-specific password in your Google account security settings. For Office 365, ensure SMTP AUTH is enabled for your account. Verify the SMTP host (e.g., smtp.gmail.com), port (typically 587 for TLS), and credentials.

SendGrid API Key Permissions

Symptom: send_email fails with 403 Forbidden when using SendGrid. Cause: The SendGrid API key does not have the "Mail Send" permission. Fix: In SendGrid, navigate to Settings > API Keys and create a key with at minimum the "Mail Send" permission.

Email Formatting Issues

Symptom: The email body appears as raw markdown instead of formatted HTML. Cause: This should not happen -- the connector renders markdown to HTML automatically. Fix: If you see raw markdown in emails, report it as a bug. The connector uses a built-in template engine to convert markdown to branded HTML.

Test Email Not Received

Symptom: Connector creation succeeds but the test email never arrives. Cause: The email may be caught by spam filters, or the from address may not be authorized by the email provider. Fix: Check your spam/junk folder. Verify that the from address domain has SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records configured for your email provider. For SendGrid/Mailgun, verify the sender domain in their dashboard.

Amazon SES Sandbox Mode

Symptom: SES emails only deliver to verified email addresses. Cause: New SES accounts start in sandbox mode, which restricts sending to verified addresses only. Fix: In the AWS Console, navigate to SES and either verify recipient addresses (for testing) or request production access to send to any address.