Getting started with mailnix

mailnix gives your website a backend for the two things static sites always end up needing: forms (contact, booking, signup, order forms with a submissions inbox) and email (owner notifications, per-submission replies, and transactional sending through your own provider). You build the site; mailnix handles the part that would otherwise need a server and a database.

Start with a form (no backend, no code on your server)

1. Create a form. Open `/forms` and click New form, or describe the form to an AI agent connected to mcp.mailnix.ch (it calls form_create for you). The designer gives you fields, validation, conditional logic, themes, layout widths, images, and multi-step breaks with a progress stepper.

1. Publish and embed. Publishing gives you a hosted page (forms.mailnix.ch/f/...) plus copy-paste embed snippets: an auto-resizing iframe or a script embed that renders the form inline on your site. No backend and no database on your side; submissions are validated, spam-scored, and stored by mailnix.

1. Work the submissions inbox. New submissions land on the form's inbox in the dashboard: search, status flow, CSV export, spam folder, file attachments (paid tiers). Add verified notify addresses to get an email when something arrives, and answer a submitter with a per-submission reply: sent only when you click send. There is no autoresponder: the pipeline never emails the person who filled in the form on its own.

Add sending when you need it

Replies and notifications work out of the box. To send email from your own domain (or send transactional mail from your app), wire up the sending chain:

1. Connect a destination. A destination is the outbound side of the pipeline: your SMTP credentials or a cloud-provider API key. Open `/destinations` and pick a preset for your webhoster (cyon, Hostpoint, IONOS, Strato, Mittwald, OVH, Gandi, Infomaniak, all-inkl) or a cloud provider (SES, Resend, Postmark, custom SMTP). We probe the credentials and surface a green check when they work.

1. Send. Three options:

• REST: POST /v1/messages with a bearer token. See the full request/response shape on `/api-reference` and the OpenAPI spec at `/openapi.yaml`.
• Browser-only: mint a publishable key and send directly from your frontend: origin-locked, rate-limited, no server needed.
• MCP tool call: from an AI agent connected to mcp.mailnix.ch, call email_send_test.

1. Look up the trace. Every send returns a trace_id. Paste it into `/traces/<trace_id>` to see the request, the routing decision, and the provider's response.

What's next

Pick the article that matches what you're doing:

• Forms: the full Forms guide: designer, embeds, submissions inbox, notifications, replies.
• Common use cases: how customers actually use mailnix, with a pointer to the right article for each pattern.
• Destinations: providers, presets, domain verification.
• Traces: what a trace is and how to read it.
• Routing: pick a destination per send.
• Failover: switch on provider trouble.
• Suppressions: bounce handling and the org-wide suppression list.
• SMTP relay: keep your existing SMTP app and gain mailnix's pre-send checks and tracing.
• MCP: the AI-agent integration.