AWS SES Convex Component

This component integrates AWS Simple Email Service (SES) with your Convex project.

Features:

• Queueing: Send as many emails as you want, as fast as you want—they'll all be delivered (eventually).
• Durable execution: Uses Convex workpools to ensure emails are eventually delivered, even in the face of temporary failures or network outages.
• Rate limiting: Honors AWS SES API rate limits.
• Event tracking: Receive delivery notifications via SNS webhooks.

See example for a demo of how to incorporate this component into your application.

Installation

npm install convex-aws-ses

Get Started

Set up your AWS credentials in your deployment environment:

• AWS_REGION (or AWS_DEFAULT_REGION)
• AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
• AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
• SES_CONFIGURATION_SET_NAME (optional, required for event tracking)
• SES_PRODUCTION_MODE (set to true to disable test mode and send to any address)
• SES_DEBUG (set to true to enable debug logging)

Next, add the component to your Convex app via convex/convex.config.ts:

import { defineApp } from "convex/server";
import ses from "convex-aws-ses/convex.config.js";

const app = defineApp();
app.use(ses);

export default app;

Then you can use it, as we see in convex/sendEmails.ts:

import { components } from "./_generated/api";
import { Ses } from "convex-aws-ses";
import { internalAction } from "./_generated/server";

export const ses: Ses = new Ses(components.ses, {});

export const sendTestEmail = internalAction({
  handler: async (ctx) => {
    await ses.sendEmail(ctx, {
      from: "[email protected]",
      to: "[email protected]",
      subject: "Hi there",
      html: "This is a test email",
    });
  },
});

Then, calling sendTestEmail from anywhere in your app will send this test email.

Note: In SES sandbox mode, both sender and recipient addresses must be verified. Move to production mode to send to any address.

If you want to send emails to real addresses, you need to disable testMode. You can do this in SesOptions, as detailed below.

Advanced Usage

Setting up SNS notifications for delivery events

While the setup we have so far will reliably send emails, you don't have any feedback on anything delivering, bouncing, or triggering spam complaints. For that, we need to set up SNS notifications!

1. Create an SNS topic in AWS console
2. Create a Configuration Set in SES and add the SNS topic as an event destination
3. Set SES_CONFIGURATION_SET_NAME environment variable

On the Convex side, we need to mount an http endpoint to our project to route it to the SES component in convex/http.ts:

import { httpRouter } from "convex/server";
import { httpAction } from "./_generated/server";
import { ses } from "./sendEmails";

const http = httpRouter();

http.route({
  path: "/ses-notifications",
  method: "POST",
  handler: httpAction(async (ctx, req) => {
    return await ses.handleSnsNotification(ctx, req);
  }),
});

export default http;

If our Convex project is happy-leopard-123, we now have an SNS endpoint for our project running at https://happy-leopard-123.convex.site/ses-notifications.

Subscribe your SNS topic to this HTTPS endpoint. The component will automatically handle subscription confirmation.

You should now be seeing email status updates as SES makes progress on your emails!

Registering an email status event handler

If you have your SNS notifications established, you can also register an event handler in your app to get notifications when email statuses change.

Update your sendEmails.ts to look something like this:

import { components, internal } from "./_generated/api";
import { internalMutation } from "./_generated/server";
import { vOnEmailEventArgs, Ses } from "convex-aws-ses";

export const ses: Ses = new Ses(components.ses, {
  onEmailEvent: internal.example.handleEmailEvent,
});

export const handleEmailEvent = internalMutation({
  args: vOnEmailEventArgs,
  handler: async (ctx, args) => {
    // Handle however you want
    // args provides { id: EmailId; event: EmailEvent; }
    // see /example/example.ts
  },
});

Check out the example/ project in this repo for a full demo.

SES component options, and going into production

There is a SesOptions argument to the component constructor to help customize its behavior.

Check out the docstrings, but notable options include:

• region: AWS region for SES (defaults to AWS_REGION env var)
• accessKeyId: AWS access key (defaults to AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID env var)
• secretAccessKey: AWS secret key (defaults to AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY env var)
• configurationSetName: SES Configuration Set name for event tracking
• testMode: Only allow delivery to verified addresses. To keep you safe as you develop your project, testMode is default true. You need to explicitly set this to false for the component to allow you to enqueue emails to arbitrary addresses.
• onEmailEvent: Your email event callback, as outlined above! Check out the docstrings for details on the events that are emitted.

Optional email sending parameters

In addition to basic from/to/subject and html/plain text bodies, the sendEmail method allows you to provide a list of replyTo addresses, cc, bcc, and custom email headers.

Using SES Templates

You can use SES templates to send emails with pre-designed templates from your AWS account. To use a template, provide the template name and any required template data:

await ses.sendEmail(ctx, {
  from: "[email protected]",
  to: "[email protected]",
  template: {
    name: "MyTemplateName",
    data: {
      name: "John Doe",
      verificationLink: "https://example.com/verify?token=abc123",
    },
  },
});

[!IMPORTANT] You cannot use both template and html/text in the same email. If you need to send dynamic HTML content, either use templates with template data, or use the html/text fields directly.

Tracking, getting status, and cancelling emails

The sendEmail method returns a branded type, EmailId. You can use this for a few things:

• To reassociate the original email during status changes in your email event handler.
• To check on the status any time using ses.status(ctx, emailId).
• To cancel the email using ses.cancelEmail(ctx, emailId).

If the email has already been sent to the SES API, it cannot be cancelled. Cancellations do not trigger an email event.

Checking email status programmatically

Use the status method to check an email's current state:

const emailStatus = await ses.status(ctx, emailId);
if (emailStatus) {
  console.log(emailStatus.status); // e.g., "delivered", "bounced", "sent"
  console.log(emailStatus.bounced); // boolean
  console.log(emailStatus.failed); // boolean
  console.log(emailStatus.complained); // spam complaint (boolean)
  console.log(emailStatus.deliveryDelayed); // boolean
  console.log(emailStatus.opened); // if open tracking enabled (boolean)
  console.log(emailStatus.clicked); // if click tracking enabled (boolean)
  console.log(emailStatus.errorMessage); // error details (string | null)
}

Viewing emails and delivery events in the dashboard

You can view all email data directly in your Convex dashboard in the component's data view. Click the drop down with a puzzle piece that says app:

1. Emails table: Navigate to your Convex dashboard → Data. Choose ses from the component drop down then choose the emails table. This shows all emails with their current status, recipients, subjects, and tracking information.

2. Delivery Events table: Navigate to Components → ses → deliveryEvents table. This table stores all SNS events received from SES, including:

   • emailId: Links back to the email in the emails table
   • sesMessageId: SES's ID for the email
   • eventType: The type of event (e.g., Delivery, Bounce, Open, Click, Complaint)
   • createdAt: When the event occurred
   • message: Additional details (e.g., bounce reasons)

This is useful for debugging delivery issues, viewing email history, and understanding what happened with each email you sent.

Data retention

This component retains "finalized" (delivered, cancelled, bounced) emails. It's your responsibility to clear out those emails on your own schedule. You can run cleanupOldEmails and cleanupAbandonedEmails from the dashboard, under the "ses" component tab in the function runner, or set up a cron job.

If you pass no argument, it defaults to deleting emails older than 7 days.

If you don't care about historical email status, the recommended approach is to use a cron job, as shown below:

// in convex/crons.ts
import { cronJobs } from "convex/server";
import { components, internal } from "./_generated/api.js";
import { internalMutation } from "./_generated/server.js";

const crons = cronJobs();
crons.interval(
  "Remove old emails from the SES component",
  { hours: 1 },
  internal.crons.cleanupSes,
);

const ONE_WEEK_MS = 7 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000;
export const cleanupSes = internalMutation({
  args: {},
  handler: async (ctx) => {
    await ctx.scheduler.runAfter(0, components.ses.lib.cleanupOldEmails, {
      olderThan: ONE_WEEK_MS,
    });
    await ctx.scheduler.runAfter(
      0,
      components.ses.lib.cleanupAbandonedEmails,
      // These generally indicate a bug, so keep them around for longer.
      { olderThan: 4 * ONE_WEEK_MS },
    );
  },
});

export default crons;

Using React Email

You can use React Email to generate your HTML for you from JSX.

First install the dependencies:

npm install @react-email/components react react-dom react-email @react-email/render

Then create a new .tsx file in your Convex directory e.g. /convex/emails.tsx:

// IMPORTANT: this is a Convex Node Action
"use node";
import { action } from "./_generated/server";
import { render, pretty } from "@react-email/render";
import { Button, Html } from "@react-email/components";
import { components } from "./_generated/api";
import { Ses } from "convex-aws-ses";

export const ses: Ses = new Ses(components.ses, {
  testMode: false,
});

export const sendEmail = action({
  args: {},
  handler: async (ctx, args) => {
    // 1. Generate the HTML from your JSX
    // This can come from a custom component in your /emails/ directory
    // if you would like to view your templates locally. For more info see:
    // https://react.email/docs/getting-started/manual-setup#5-run-locally
    const html = await pretty(
      await render(
        <Html>
          <Button
            href="https://example.com"
            style={{ background: "#000", color: "#fff", padding: "12px 20px" }}
          >
            Click me
          </Button>
        </Html>,
      ),
    );

    // 2. Send your email as usual using the component
    await ses.sendEmail(ctx, {
      from: "[email protected]",
      to: "[email protected]",
      subject: "Hi there",
      html,
    });
  },
});

[!WARNING] React Email requires some Node dependencies thus it must run in a Convex Node action and not a regular Action.

Sending emails manually

If you need fine-grained control over the email sending process, you can send emails manually using sendEmailManually. Unlike sendEmail which enqueues emails and sends them via the batching system, sendEmailManually lets you call the SES API directly while still tracking progress using the component's status and event APIs.

import { components, internal } from "./_generated/api";
import { internalAction } from "./_generated/server";
import { Ses } from "convex-aws-ses";
import {
  SESv2Client,
  SendEmailCommand,
} from "@aws-sdk/client-sesv2";

const sesClient = new SESv2Client({
  region: process.env.AWS_REGION,
  credentials: {
    accessKeyId: process.env.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID!,
    secretAccessKey: process.env.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY!,
  },
});

export const ses = new Ses(components.ses, {});

export const sendManualEmail = internalAction({
  args: {},
  handler: async (ctx, args) => {
    const from = "[email protected]";
    const to = ["[email protected]"];
    const subject = "hello world";
    const html = "<p>it works!</p>";

    const emailId = await ses.sendEmailManually(
      ctx,
      { from, to, subject },
      async (emailId) => {
        const command = new SendEmailCommand({
          FromEmailAddress: from,
          Destination: { ToAddresses: to },
          Content: {
            Simple: {
              Subject: { Data: subject },
              Body: { Html: { Data: html } },
            },
          },
          ConfigurationSetName: process.env.SES_CONFIGURATION_SET_NAME,
        });

        const response = await sesClient.send(command);
        if (!response.MessageId) {
          throw new Error("No MessageId returned from SES");
        }
        return response.MessageId;
      },
    );
    return emailId;
  },
});

Use sendEmailManually when you need features not supported by the standard API, such as attachments, or when you want to send an email immediately without waiting for the batching system.