Switched dev:mailgun script to use Mailgun API instead of SMTP

[cmraible]

closes https://linear.app/ghost/issue/NY-1408/ensure-automation-emails-are-sent-via-the-mailgun-api-in-production

Summary

• Currently with regular pnpm dev, automation emails are sent to Mailpit. This is fine for the current features, but now that we're working on adding email analytics for automation emails, we need to start using the Mailgun API to send these. This is already how Ghost is configured on Ghost(Pro), but it's currently somewhat tricky to mimic this config locally.
• The existing pnpm dev:mailgun setup is almost there, but it uses Mailgun via SMTP, which doesn't pass along the tags and other metadata needed for automations email analytics.
• This updates the pnpm dev:mailgun command to use the Mailgun API (transport = mailgun) for newsletters, transactional emails, and automation emails alike, which also aligns with how mail is configured on Ghost(Pro)

[coderabbitai]

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 70c9e2f and 0535cdd.

📒 Files selected for processing (2)

• .env.example
• compose.dev.mailgun.yaml

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Walkthrough

This change updates the development environment configuration for Mailgun email delivery, switching from SMTP-based transport to Mailgun's API-based transport. The .env.example file replaces Mailgun SMTP credential variables with API credential variables (domain, from address, API key, API URL, base URL). The compose.dev.mailgun.yaml docker compose file updates the Ghost dev service environment to use the mailgun mail transport with corresponding API configuration and bulk email delivery settings.

Changes

File	Change Summary
.env.example	Removed MAILGUN_SMTP_USER/MAILGUN_SMTP_PASS; added MAILGUN_DOMAIN, MAILGUN_FROM, MAILGUN_API_KEY, MAILGUN_API_URL, MAILGUN_BASE_URL with updated comments
compose.dev.mailgun.yaml	Switched Ghost mail transport from SMTP to mailgun, wiring API URL/key/domain and bulk email delivery settings

Related Issues: None mentioned.

Related PRs: None mentioned.

Suggested labels: configuration, mailgun, dev-environment

Suggested reviewers: None specified.

Poem

A rabbit hops from SMTP's den,
To API keys, and starts again,
Domains and tokens now line the trail,
Mailgun letters no longer need mail's old rail,
Hop, hop — the dev env's fresh terrain!

✨ Finishing Touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch codex/switch-devmailgun-to-api

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[nx-cloud]

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☁️ Nx Cloud last updated this comment at 2026-07-07 15:26:03 UTC

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