Case inbox

The inbox is part of @weber-development/inverse-ledger (from 2.1). It shows every declaration with its status and refund day, marks overdue withdrawals, moves a case on and sends the customer a reply from a template. Status changes are written to the evidence chain, so the history of a case is part of the evidence.

Status: beta. The server and the status logic are tested with real HTTP requests against a ledger and a fake mail transport. It has not been tested against a real mail provider.

Start it

export INVERSE_INBOX_PASSWORD="a password of at least 12 characters"
npx inverse-ledger inbox ./data/inverse.db --company "Acme GmbH"

Open http://127.0.0.1:4410/ and sign in with the user admin (--user changes it). The target can be a JSON Lines file, SQLite or PostgreSQL, as for every ledger command. The server listens on 127.0.0.1; put HTTPS in front of it (a reverse proxy or a tunnel) before you reach it from anywhere else, since Basic auth sends the password with every request.

A JSON Lines ledger has one writer. Stop the inbox before your shop writes to the same file, or use SQLite or PostgreSQL, where the sequence number prevents forks.

In code

import { createInbox, createLedger } from "@weber-development/inverse-ledger";
import { serveInbox } from "@weber-development/inverse-ledger/node";
import { resend } from "@weber-development/inverse-mail";

const inbox = createInbox({
  ledger,
  company: "Acme GmbH",
  transport: resend({ apiKey: process.env.RESEND_API_KEY!, from: "Acme <service@acme.de>" }),
});

await serveInbox({ inbox, user: "admin", password: process.env.INBOX_PASSWORD! });

// or without the UI:
await inbox.change("W-7K3QX9PD", "refunded", { amount: "49.90", currency: "EUR", reply: "refunded", locale: "de" });

inboxHandler returns a plain Node request handler if you want to mount it in your own server.

Reply templates

received, processing, refunded, rejected and info, in German and English. The reference, contract, date and refund day come from the ledger, not from what you type. You can preview a mail before it is sent. If sending fails, the status stays saved and the answer says mail: "failed".

Security

• Every request needs HTTP Basic auth; the comparison does not leak timing.
• Changes need the header x-inverse-inbox: 1, which another web page cannot send without a CORS preflight that the server never allows.
• The page sends a strict content security policy and shows customer text only as text.
• Personal data that was redacted by retention or erasure is not shown, and no mail can be sent for it.