Email2ChatGPT – Product Documentation & User Journey

Produced by Rally Collaboration

1. Product Summary

Email2ChatGPT turns any email into a ChatGPT conversation. Users send an email to chat@email2chatgpt.com, and the service replies with AI-generated responses powered by GPT-5.1. No app. No login. No dashboard. Just email in, AI out.

It’s built for people and companies stuck behind firewalls, legacy environments, or restrictive IT policies. It works everywhere email works.

Core idea: AI that meets you where you already are: your inbox.

2. Admin Dashboard

The system includes a fast, mobile-friendly admin dashboard for managing the bot on the go.

Dashboard URL: https://your-worker-url.workers.dev (protected by Cloudflare Access)

Features:

• Activity Stream: Real-time view of Inbound/Outbound messages with status badges.
• User Management:
  • Searchable user list.
  • Conversation History: See full timeline of user interactions with collapsible details, HTML previews, and consistent styling with the main messages view.
  • Per-User Settings: Override AI model (GPT-5.1 vs Mini) and prompts for specific users.
  • GDPR Tools: Export user data (JSON) or permanently delete/anonymize users.
• Global Settings: Configure default AI behavior (System Prompt, Model, Reasoning Effort) for all users.

3. Primary Use Cases

A. Individuals

• Quick AI help without opening a browser
• Write drafts, summarize threads, brainstorm
• Mobile-first users traveling or offline

B. Corporate Employees (the real target)

• Banks, hospitals, insurers with locked-down devices
• Teams that can’t install extensions or use AI web apps
• Workers who can only access AI via email

C. Process Automation

• Forward an entire thread for summarization
• Email attachments → processed, summarized, rewritten
• Email as a lightweight API surface

4. Product Architecture Overview

Microservices Architecture

Rally uses a microservices pattern with 4 independent Cloudflare Workers:

Service	Purpose	Size
rally-ingest	Main coordinator: webhooks, dashboard, email formatting	~73 KB
rally-ai	OpenAI API calls, file uploads	~7 KB
rally-mailer	Postmark email sending	~2 KB
rally-attachments	R2 file storage	~1.5 KB

Flow:

Postmark → Ingest Worker → AI Worker → Ingest → Mailer Worker → Postmark
                ↓
            D1 Database
                ↓
         Attachments Worker → R2

5. Developer Guide & Setup

Dashboard Development

The admin dashboard uses server-side rendered HTML with minimal vanilla JS to ensure speed and simplicity.

• Views: Located in services/ingest/src/dashboard/views/.
• Shared Components: Reusable UI elements (like message rows) are in services/ingest/src/dashboard/views/shared.ts.
• Layout: layout.ts provides the common HTML shell.

Quick Start

1. Install dependencies

   npm install

2. Create D1 database

   npx wrangler d1 create rally-database

3. Create R2 bucket

   npx wrangler r2 bucket create rally-attachments

4. Run migrations

   # Apply all migrations automatically from the ingest service directory
   cd services/ingest && npx wrangler d1 migrations apply rally-database --remote

5. Set secrets

   # Mailer needs Postmark token
   cd services/mailer && npx wrangler secret put POSTMARK_TOKEN
   # AI needs OpenAI key
   cd ../../services/ai && npx wrangler secret put OPENAI_API_KEY

6. Deploy Services

   # Deploy from each service directory (recommended approach)
   cd services/ingest && npx wrangler deploy
   cd ../ai && npx wrangler deploy
   cd ../mailer && npx wrangler deploy
   cd ../attachments && npx wrangler deploy

   💡 Tip: For daily development, you usually only need to deploy the service you changed:

   cd services/ingest && npx wrangler deploy  # Most common - handles 90% of changes

Quick Deployment Workflow

For daily development:

# 1. Make your changes to the code

# 2. Deploy the changed service
cd services/ingest && npx wrangler deploy

# 3. Test immediately
# Send test email or visit dashboard

When adding database migrations:

# 1. Create migration file in migrations/ folder

# 2. Apply migration
cd services/ingest && npx wrangler d1 migrations apply rally-database --remote

# 3. Deploy the code
npx wrangler deploy

For production releases:

# 1. Commit and push to GitHub
git add . && git commit -m "feat: description" && git push

# 2. Apply any new migrations
cd services/ingest && npx wrangler d1 migrations apply rally-database --remote

# 3. Deploy changed services
npx wrangler deploy  # (from within the service directory)

# 4. Verify with live logs
npx wrangler tail rallyflare

Troubleshooting

"JavaScript Exception" on Dashboard:

• This usually means a database query failed. Check that your D1 database has all tables created (users, messages, email_settings).
• Use npx wrangler tail rallyflare to see the exact error trace.

AI Not Replying:

• Check rally-ai logs: npx wrangler tail rally-ai
• Ensure your OpenAI API key is valid and has access to gpt-5.1.
• Verify rally-ingest logs to see if it successfully handed off the request.

Migrations Not Working:

• Make sure you're running migrations from services/ingest/ directory
• Check wrangler.toml has migrations_dir = "../../migrations" configured
• Verify the database binding is correct in wrangler.toml

License

MIT License - feel free to use Email2ChatGPT for personal or commercial projects.

---

Credits Built with Cloudflare Workers, D1, Postmark, and OpenAI GPT-5.1. Produced by Rally Collaboration.