Self-hosting and operations

InboxLink is a Hono app deployed as one Vercel function (api/index.ts) with Postgres. You need your own Google OAuth client to run it.

Run it locally

git clone https://github.com/EtienneFokou-E18560/inboxlink.git
cd inboxlink
cp .env.example .env    # placeholders only
pnpm install && pnpm build
docker compose up -d    # Postgres
pnpm --filter @inboxlink/server dev

Tables are created at startup. Without DATABASE_URL the server keeps data in memory: fine for a demo, never for real mailboxes.

Settings (names only)

Setting	Purpose
`DATABASE_URL`	Postgres
`INBOXLINK_MASTER_KEY`	Key that encrypts the token vault
`PUBLIC_BASE_URL`	The server’s public address
`GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID`, `GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET`, `GOOGLE_REDIRECT_URI`	Your Google OAuth client
`INBOXLINK_MODE`	`single` (default, no API secret) or `multi`
`INBOXLINK_API_SECRET`, `INBOXLINK_TENANT_SECRETS`	API secrets per tenant in `multi` mode
`ALLOWED_REDIRECT_ORIGINS`	Which host origins may receive Connect redirects
`INBOXLINK_CONNECT_POLICY`	Tenants that reuse a grant on reconnect (`tenantId=reuse`)
`GMAIL_PUBSUB_TOPIC`, `GMAIL_PUSH_SECRET`, `CRON_SECRET`	Gmail push and scheduled jobs

Never put values in git, issues or chat. See .env.example.

Health

GET /health is public and never shows secrets.

Answer	Meaning
`200`, `"store":"postgres"`	Ready for real Connects
`200`, `"store":"memory"`	Data is lost on restart: do not connect real mailboxes
`503`, `database_unavailable`	Check Postgres and `DATABASE_URL`

pnpm smoke:health https://inboxlink-two.vercel.app

The hosted service also has a human-readable status page.

Gmail push and scheduled jobs

Polling with POST …/sync always works. For near-real-time mail:

Create a Pub/Sub topic and give Publisher to gmail-api-push@system.gserviceaccount.com.
Point a push subscription at https://<host>/v1/internal/gmail/push?token=<GMAIL_PUSH_SECRET>.
Set GMAIL_PUBSUB_TOPIC, GMAIL_PUSH_SECRET and CRON_SECRET.

Two scheduled jobs keep things moving: renew-gmail-watches (daily) and drain-sync-jobs. Vercel’s Hobby plan only allows daily cron jobs, so the repository also runs the drain from a GitHub Action.

Full runbook: ops-runbook.md.