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E-mail flows: capture the message next to the screen that sent it

Sign-up confirmation, order receipt, password reset. QAwalk captures the e-mail from Mailpit or letter_opener as a step of the flow, checks its subject and links, and shows it on the canvas next to the form.

The form works. The e-mail says "Hello {{first_name}}". Every team has shipped this once; QAwalk makes the message a step of the flow so it is looked at with the screens around it.

The problem

E-mails live outside the browser, so end-to-end tests skip them or assert on a subject string. Nobody sees the rendered message in both languages until a customer does.

What changes with QAwalk

An email step in the scenario. qawalk mail waits for the message in the test mailbox (Mailpit on staging, letter_opener locally in Rails projects), captures it like a screen, and the criteria check subject, sender, links and copy. On the canvas the e-mail sits right after the form that triggered it.

How it works

1. Unique address per run

   qawalk start prints a test address (qa+<run>@…); the agent uses it in the form so the run finds its own messages.

2. Trigger and capture

   after the form step, qawalk mail --step confirmation --locale cs waits for the message and stores it with rendered HTML and the plain text.

3. Check it

   deterministic criteria on subject and links (the confirmation link must point at your host), a semantic question for tone and completeness, a screenshot for the humans.

4. Review

   the reviewer sees the form and the e-mail side by side per locale and approves or returns them like any other step.

Skills and prompts

Walk the sign-up flow on local including the confirmation e-mail in cs and en, and check that the link in the mail opens the account page.

Expected outcome: screens of the form and the account page, an e-mail step per locale with subject and sender, criteria on the link target, a shared canvas.

What you get

• E-mails as first-class steps: captured, checked, reviewed, versioned with the run.
• Both mailbox styles supported: Mailpit over HTTP and letter_opener folders on disk.
• No production mail is ever sent: production is read-only in QAwalk.

FAQ

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