Six weeks ago I was building an auth flow and needed a throwaway inbox to test if the password reset email actually arrived. I opened a temp email site, navigated past three ad banners, got a random address, and waited.
That workflow was broken enough that I built the infrastructure myself instead.
Here's what I built, what it cost, and what happened after.
The problem in one sentence
Every developer testing email flows either mocks the email (wrong), runs a local SMTP server (overkill), or uses a throwaway email site with ads (terrible DX). None of these are good answers.
