Test email delivery locally

This recipe shows how to create a test SMTP inbox and use it to receive emails sent by brkpt-auth during local development.

Use this when a feature needs email delivery but you do not want to configure a real email provider yet.

Create a test SMTP account

Open Ethereal and create a test account:

https://ethereal.email/create

Ethereal gives you SMTP credentials and a web inbox for captured test emails.

Caution

Ethereal shows the generated credentials only once. Copy them before leaving the page.

Configure SMTP variables

Copy the generated SMTP credentials into your existing .env file:

.env

SMTP_HOST="smtp.ethereal.email"
SMTP_PORT="587"
SMTP_USER="your-ethereal-username"
SMTP_PASS="your-ethereal-password"
SMTP_FROM="no-reply@example.test"

Restart the NestJS server after changing .env.

Send a test email

Trigger a brkpt-auth feature that sends email.

For example, if you completed Add OTP, send an OTP code:

POST /auth/otp/send
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "target": "kevin@example.com",
  "method": "email"
}

Open the inbox

Open the Ethereal messages page:

https://ethereal.email/messages

Find the captured message and copy the verification value you need, such as an OTP code or a magic link.

Troubleshooting

No message appears in the inbox.

Make sure the SMTP variables match the Ethereal account you created. Then restart the NestJS server and trigger the email flow again.

The SMTP credentials are missing.

Ethereal shows generated credentials only once. Create a new Ethereal account and update your .env file.

The message format is not what you want.

The email driver is source code in your project. Edit the relevant driver send method to customize the subject or body.