Outreach Operations

Outreach operations handle the sending pipeline: policy validation, SMTP delivery, idempotency, suppression, and audit logging.

Send Pipeline

Every outbound email goes through this pipeline:

flowchart TD
    A[Send Request] --> B[Authenticate User]
    B --> C[Resolve Lead Email from DB]
    C --> D[Policy Validation]
    D -->|Approved| E[Create Outreach Attempt Record]
    D -->|Blocked| F[Record Audit Log + Return 403]
    E --> G[Send via SMTP with TLS]
    G -->|Success| H[Increment Counters]
    G -->|Success| I[Mark Idempotency Key]
    G -->|Success| J[Update Lead Status to Contacted]
    G -->|Failure| K[Return 500 with Generic Error]
    H --> L[Return 200 with Attempt Details]
    I --> L
    J --> L

    style D fill:#fff3e0
    style G fill:#e3f2fd
    style F fill:#ffebee

Counter timing

Counters and idempotency keys are marked only after successful SMTP delivery, never before. This prevents false cap consumption on failed sends.

Policy Validation

Before every send, the system validates:

Check	Rule	On Failure
Daily user cap	Max 100 emails/user/day	Block + audit
Daily domain cap	Max 20 emails/domain/day	Block + audit
Suppression list	Recipient not suppressed	Block + audit
Idempotency	No duplicate (sender, recipient, subject) in 24h	Block + audit
Legal basis	EU domains → "consent", others → "legitimate_interest"	Auto-assign

API: POST /api/v1/backlink-outreach/policy/validate

{
  "recipient_email": "editor@example.com",
  "sender_email": "outreach@yourdomain.com",
  "subject": "Guest Post: AI Marketing Trends"
}

Response:

{
  "allowed": true,
  "reason": "All checks passed",
  "legal_basis": "legitimate_interest",
  "daily_user_count": 23,
  "daily_user_limit": 100,
  "daily_domain_count": 5,
  "daily_domain_limit": 20,
  "region": "US"
}

Region-Aware Legal Basis

The system infers the recipient's region from their email domain's TLD:

TLDs	Region	Legal Basis
.de, .fr, .it, .es, .nl, .pl, .se, .at, .be, .ch, .pt, .ie, .dk, .fi, .no, .cz, .gr, .hu, .ro, .bg, .hr, .sk, .si, .lt, .lv, .ee	EU	consent
.co.uk, .uk	UK	consent
.ca	CA	consent
.com.au, .co.nz	AU/NZ	consent
All others	—	legitimate_interest

GDPR compliance

EU, UK, CA, and AU domain leads always use consent as the legal basis. This means you should have obtained some form of consent before reaching out. For other regions, legitimate_interest is applied automatically.

Suppression List

Recipients on the suppression list are blocked from receiving emails.

Adding to Suppression

API: POST /api/v1/backlink-outreach/suppression

{
  "email": "unsubscribed@example.com",
  "reason": "User requested unsubscribe"
}

Listing Suppressed Recipients

API: GET /api/v1/backlink-outreach/suppression

Auto-Suppression

Recipients are automatically added to the suppression list when: - They reply with "not interested" language. - They explicitly request to be removed. - An email to their address hard-bounces.

Idempotency

The system prevents duplicate sends using idempotency keys derived from (sender_email, recipient_email, subject).

• Keys are valid for 24 hours.
• After successful SMTP delivery, the key is marked as used.
• Attempting to send the same (sender, recipient, subject) within 24h returns a policy block.

SMTP Configuration

Emails are sent via SMTP with mandatory TLS:

Setting	Env Var	Default
SMTP host	SMTP_HOST	— (required)
SMTP port	SMTP_PORT	587
SMTP username	SMTP_USER	— (required)
SMTP password	SMTP_PASS	— (required)
TLS verification	SMTP_VERIFY_TLS	true
Send timeout	SMTP_SEND_TIMEOUT	30 seconds
From email	SMTP_FROM_EMAIL	— (required)

TLS certificate verification

By default, SMTP_VERIFY_TLS=true validates the SMTP server's TLS certificate. Set to false only for local development with self-signed certs. Never disable in production.

SMTP Connection Flow

1. Connect to SMTP host on configured port.
2. Send EHLO greeting.
3. Upgrade to TLS with STARTTLS.
4. Send EHLO again (required by RFC 3207 after STARTTLS).
5. Authenticate with username/password.
6. Send the email with a configurable timeout.
7. Quit the connection cleanly.

Audit Logging

Every policy check is recorded in the audit log:

Field	Description
user_id	Authenticated user who initiated the send.
lead_email	Intended recipient.
sender_email	Sending address.
subject	Email subject line.
policy_result	approved or blocked.
reason	Human-readable explanation.
legal_basis	consent or legitimate_interest.
timestamp	When the check occurred.

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Next: Reply Inbox — IMAP monitoring and auto-classification.