3.2. Setting Up the Email

Initially emails are used by the Auth package (cradle-auth) to verify sign ups and within the forgot password flow. In order to utilize auto email responders, you need to first configure your email settings in services.php.

Figure 3.2.A. config/services.php

...
'mail-main' => [
    'host' => 'smtp.gmail.com',
    'port' => '587',
    'type' => 'tls',
    'name' => 'Project Name',
    'user' => '<EMAIL ADDRESS>',
    'pass' => '<EMAIL PASSWORD>'
]
...

In the configuration above type can be tls or ssl.

INFORMATION: if ssl, then the port should be 465 as per Gmail settings.

If you are planning to use an email provided by Google, you will need to allow the email to be used with less secure apps or by using an app password.

The system also provides a way to send emails to stakeholders whenever an error in the system occurs. You can set the error email in settings.php.

Figure 3.2.B. config/settings.php

...
'error_email' => '<EMAIL ADDRESS>'
...

Now that we have our email set, we can do a test email given the command below.

Figure 3.2.B. Testing email

$ bin/cradle auth-verify-mail auth_id=1 auth_slug=[EMAIL] auth_updated=123456 host=localhost

Just replace [EMAIL] with your actual email address (for testing purposes). To figure out how this command was derived, it’s important to know that Cradle can call events in the command like via $ bin/cradle [EVENT] and parameters to that event can be passed using the k=v parameter syntax. To figure out what parameters an event needs is kind of tricky however, as you will need to look at the source code per event. This event code for example was used for Figure 3.2.B.