# Local email testing

> Test SMTP and account-email flows locally with the opt-in Mailpit development override.

This is the machine-readable version of this Firewatch documentation page.

Mailpit is an opt-in development-only SMTP inbox. It is not included in the
default self-hosted stack, which bootstraps the first administrator without
email verification and leaves email alerts disabled.

Start Firewatch with the local email override:

```bash
docker compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.mailpit.yml up -d --build
```

The override enables email verification and starts Mailpit. Omit it when
testing the normal self-hosted first-run experience.

Open Firewatch at `http://localhost:3000` and Mailpit at
`http://localhost:8025`. Mailpit captures messages sent through its SMTP port;
it does not deliver them to the public internet.

The override enables email in both the API and worker and connects them to
`mailpit:1025` without authentication or TLS. The worker sends incident alerts;
the API sends account and invitation mail. Port `1025` is also bound to loopback
so a process launched directly on the host can use `localhost:1025`. It also permits the Vite
development origin at `http://localhost:5173` for passkey ceremonies while the
canonical Docker web origin remains `http://localhost:3000`.

To stop only the development inbox:

```bash
docker compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.mailpit.yml stop mailpit
```

Do not rely on Mailpit in production. Configure the standard `Email__*` settings
against an authenticated, TLS-enabled SMTP service instead.