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Email Import Node

Overview

Section titled “Overview”

Email Import gives each canvas node its own inbound email address. You send plaintext or attachments to that address, and Fontana starts the workflow as its owner, no manual click required.

  • Real inbound mail - Fontana receives SMTP for addresses on @<tenant>.<baseDomain>, not a polled mailbox
  • One address per node - the local part is server-generated and opaque; it is never derived from your workflow id or username
  • Owner-triggered runs - the run fires with your workflow’s owner identity, the same identity a scheduled cron run uses
  • Inbox mode - each new email triggers one run that contains your entire inbox as a datagrid: one row per email, newest first, up to maxEmails rows (default 100)
  • Structured dataset rows - each row has typed columns (from, sent, subject, body, to, cc, messageId) plus an attachments array
  • Parsed attachments - Docling-supported files contribute markdown; CSV/TSV/PSV contribute tabular rows; other types soft-fail with parseError without blocking the run

Pause and resume inbound triggers

Section titled “Pause and resume inbound triggers”

On the canvas node (full card and compact / graph simplified view) a pause / play control toggles whether new mail starts runs. Pause sets the node disabled (common.execution.enabled: false); inbound SMTP then fail-closes for that node with no run. Resume turns triggers back on. You can still open the node and replay past messages manually while paused.

Getting your address

Section titled “Getting your address”

Save the workflow, then open the Email Import tab on the node. Fontana provisions the address the first time you open the tab and shows it once ready:

<opaque-local-part>@<tenant>.<baseDomain>

Example: wf-….@<tenant>.<baseDomain>. You always see the address your deployment actually has, never a client-guessed value. If your deployment has not enabled inbound email, the tab tells you so instead of showing a broken address.

What happens when mail arrives

Section titled “What happens when mail arrives”
  1. The sender’s MTA delivers to your tenant mail hostname.
  2. Fontana maps the opaque local-part to this workflow node.
  3. MIME body, metadata, and attachments are stored in your workspace file store (the same store as File Input).
  4. Fontana merges the new message into this node’s inbox, keeps messages newest-first, and caps the count at maxEmails (default 100).
  5. A workflow run starts (or queues after the current run) with one structured row per email on the node’s output port.
  6. Each attachment is parsed on that run (document markdown, tabular rows, or a soft-fail parseError) and nested under attachments[].
  7. The run uses the workflow owner’s identity for connectors and secrets, the same as a scheduled cron run.

Structured output rows

Section titled “Structured output rows”

The output port is a multi-row datagrid with one row per email in your inbox, newest first:

Column Type Notes
from string MIME From
sent string UTC sent stamp (same shape historically used on the canonical Sent: line)
subject string MIME Subject
body string Plaintext body only (no header block)
to string[] MIME To addresses (empty when absent)
cc string[] MIME Cc addresses (empty when absent)
messageId string Normalized Message-ID (empty when absent)
attachments object[] Per-file metadata and parse results

Each attachments[] element includes name, extension, size, contentType, storedName, parseEngine (docling | tabular | none), and optional markdown, rows, or parseError. BCC is not exposed on output.

Row order is newest-first. The number of rows is capped by maxEmails (default 100). When a new email arrives, the entire inbox snapshot is re-materialized as the output dataset for that run.

This shape is Email Import only. File Input Paste mode still uses a single body column with an Outlook-style header block when you paste mail into Paste.

Downstream extract

Section titled “Downstream extract”

Read native columns (from, sent, subject, to, cc, messageId, attachments) directly from Email Import. Wire a Template node only when you need fields embedded inside the plaintext body (for example Client / Order / Qty lines), then a Schema node for typed shapes. The email-structured-data-extract skill still builds Paste → Template → Schema for File Input Paste corpora; for inbound Email Import it prefers native header columns and Jinja for body-field extraction only.

Explore ships an Inbound Email Showcase community template with Email Import → Template (body fields) → Schema → Operation SWITCH siphons (rush vs standard by Qty) → separate Save File exports.

Inbox panel

Section titled “Inbox panel”

On the Email Import tab, below the provisioned address, the Inbox panel lists every email this node has received (subject, sender, date). Click any row to expand it and read the body text.

New runs start automatically when mail arrives. You do not need to replay or refresh; use the canvas Run button for a manual run.

Inbound email files are not listed on File Input Engine Files; the Inbox panel on this node is the only UI for these messages.

Inbox cap

Section titled “Inbox cap”

The maxEmails setting in the Settings tab caps how many recent messages are packed into each run as rows (default 100). When your inbox exceeds the cap the oldest emails are dropped from the run; the Inbox panel still shows every received message. The other Settings fields (markAsRead, includeAttachments, autoReconnect) are stored on the node but not yet read by ingest.

What Email Import does not do

Section titled “What Email Import does not do”
  • It does not poll an IMAP mailbox or accept mailbox credentials
  • It does not map the sender’s address to a Fontana user; the run always fires as the workflow owner
  • It does not accept mail from third-party inbound webhook providers
  • It does not see BCC’d or envelope-only recipients: your provisioned address is matched against the message’s To and Cc headers only. Mail addressed to your provisioned address solely through BCC does not trigger a run.

Enabling inbound email for a deployment

Section titled “Enabling inbound email for a deployment”

Inbound email is enabled per deployment by your platform team. They configure the tenant mail domain, publish MX records, and run fontana apply. See Fontana CLI and your deployment runbook for enable steps.

Section titled “Related”
  • File Input - Paste mode still uses the Outlook-style body header block; Docling on document attachments
  • Template - extracts fields from plaintext body when native columns are not enough
  • Workflow schema - Full schema reference