Most "temp mail" sites share one annoyance: you sign up for something, switch to the throwaway inbox, and then mash refresh waiting for the verification email. I wanted to build one where messages just appear the
instant they arrive — and where developers could drive the whole thing from code for automated testing.
This is a write-up of how MailboxTemp works under the hood: a disposable email service with a real-time inbox and a small open API. No framework magic, just Node, an SMTP server, a queue, and
WebSockets.
## The problem
