Kinsta - Hello World - Email Sending With Node.js

An example of how to set your Node.js application to send emails via SendGrid from Kinsta App Hosting services.

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Email Support At Kinsta

Kinsta does not natively support outbound email from servers. Sending emails through specialized outbound providers such as SendGrid or Mailchimp offers more flexibility and higher success rates for transactional and campaign emails.

While Kinsta doesn't limit or control the outbound mail you send using a third-party SMTP service provider, we maintain a strict anti-spam policy. That policy covers email sent via an application or site hosted at Kinsta, even if we are not the SMTP provider.

Environment Variables

Once you've created your application in MyKinsta you will need to set environment variables. You can do so through the Settings section of your application in Environment variables section by pressing the Add environment variable button. You'll need to set three variables:

• SENDGRID_API_KEY: The API key created on SendGrid
• TEST_EMAIL_TO_ADDRESS: The address you'd like to send the test email to
• TEST_EMAIL_FROM_ADDRESS: The address you'd like to send the test email from
• TEST_ENDPOINT: The endpoint you'd like to use as a trigger to send the test email. Please use a random string of at least 8 characters.

Deployment Lifecycle

Whenever a deployment is initiated (through creating an application or re-deploying due to an incoming commit) the npm build command is run, followed by the npm start command.

This project does not require a build phase, the start command runs node server.js which starts an Express server with two endpoints:

• /: A simple page that returns the Hello World message
• /${TEST_ENDPOINT} A page that - when visited - will trigger the sending of a test email.

Triggering an email

To trigger the sending of an email you'll need to find the URL of your deployment on the Deployments page. Append your test endpoint to this URL and visit that page to trigger the email.

For example, if your TEST_ENDPOINT is set to o34nifnodhni4of and your latest deployment is at example.kinsta.app you can trigger a test email by visiting https://example.kinsta.app/o34nifnodhni4of