Pigeon is a command line tool for automating your email workflow in a cheap and efficient way. Utilize your most efficient dev tools you are already familiar with.
For example, you can define a bash alias
with your individual pigeon
command to send your weekly newsletter to your audience. You might want to automatize the send schedule by defining a systemd .service
.
You might also draft a static html with your favorite web development framework, and use pigeon to send this html template.
Check connection to your email provider with pigeon connect
. For example, using AWS Simple Email Service (SES):
bash
pigeon connect aws
Connected to aws client: ok
See currently supported integrations and how to connect below.
Send a single email with subject and content:
bash
pigeon send sender@your-domain.com receiver@gmail.com --subject "Test subject" --content "This is a test email."
Send a single email with message defined in separate template file:
bash
pigeon send sender@your-domain.com receiver@gmail.com --message-file "message.yaml"
The message template message.yaml
is created with subcommand init
:
bash
pigeon init
Note: One of the advantages of a --message-file
is that you can also draft the html version of your email. In contrast, with the options --subject
and --object
the same format will be sent as plaintext and html email.
For example, query relevant users which confirmed to receive your newsletter, and send an email to all of them.
Let's check the query first via pigeon query
:
bash
pigeon query --display "select email from user where newsletter_confirmed = true"
``` console
Display query result: shape: (4, 1) +------------------------------+ | email | | --- | | str | +==============================+ | "marie@curie.com" | +------------------------------+ | "alexandre@grothendieck.com" | +------------------------------+ | "emmy@noether.com" | +------------------------------+ | "elie@cartan.com" | +------------------------------+ ```
See how to connect below to connect your database.
Note: You can also --save
your query as a csv file: pigeon query --save <my-query>
.
Now send your newsletter to the queried receivers. Let's try a --dry-run
without confirmation --assume-yes
first:
bash
pigeon send-bulk albert@einstein.com --receiver-query "select email from user where newsletter_confirmed = true" --message-file "message.yaml" --assume-yes --dry-run
``` console
Sending email to 4 receivers ... marie@curie.com ... dry run alexandre@grothendieck.com ... dry run emmy@noether.com ... dry run elie@cartan.com ... dry run ```
After double checking, you can submit the same command without --dry-run
. Remove --assume-yes
as well for explicit confirmation.
Note: You can also send a bulk email to email adresses defined in a csv file instead of a query result. In this case, use option --receiver-file
instead of --receiver-query
. You can check the contents of a csv file via subcommand read
, e.g. pigeon read recipients.csv
.
If you need more individual emails, you can personalize your emails with option --personalize
. Again, let's start by checking the relevant query:
bash
pigeon query --display "select first_name, last_name, email from user where newsletter_confirmed = true"
``` console
Display query result: shape: (4, 3) +-------------+----------------+------------------------------+ | firstname | lastname | email | | --- | --- | --- | | str | str | str | +=============+================+==============================+ | "Marie" | "Curie" | "marie@curie.com" | +-------------+----------------+------------------------------+ | "Alexandre" | "Grothendieck" | "alexandre@grothendieck.com" | +-------------+----------------+------------------------------+ | "Emmy" | "Noether" | "emmy@noether.com" | +-------------+----------------+------------------------------+ | "Elie" | "Cartan" | "elie@cartan.com" | +-------------+----------------+------------------------------+ ```
In your message template message.yaml
use variables in curly brackets, like {first_name}
and {last_name}
. Then define personalized colums as parameters for option --personalize
. Finally, let's display everything with --display
:
bash
pigeon send-bulk albert@einstein.com --receiver-query "select first_name, last_name, email from user where newsletter_confirmed = true" --message-file "message.yaml" --personalize "first_name" "last_name" --display
``` console
Display message file: MessageTemplate { message: Message { subject: "Issue No. 1", text: "Dear {firstname} {lastname}, Welcome to my newsletter. We are doing hard sciences here. Sincerely, Albert Einstein", html: "Dear {firstname} {lastname}, Welcome to my newsletter. We are doing hard sciences here. Sincerely, Albert Einstein", }, } Display emails: BulkEmail { emails: [ Email { sender: "albert@einstein.com", receiver: "marie@curie.com", message: Message { subject: "Issue No. 1", text: "Dear Marie Curie, Welcome to my newsletter. We are doing hard sciences here. Sincerely, Albert Einstein", html: "Dear Marie Curie, Welcome to my newsletter. We are doing hard sciences here. Sincerely, Albert Einstein", }, }, Email { sender: "albert@einstein.com", receiver: "alexandre@grothendieck.com", message: Message { subject: "Issue No. 1", text: "Dear Alexandre Grothendieck, Welcome to my newsletter. We are doing hard sciences here. Sincerely, Albert Einstein", html: "Dear Alexandre Grothendieck, Welcome to my newsletter. We are doing hard sciences here. Sincerely, Albert Einstein", }, }, Email { sender: "albert@einstein.com", receiver: "emmy@noether.com", message: Message { subject: "Issue No. 1", text: "Dear Emmy Noether, Welcome to my newsletter. We are doing hard sciences here. Sincerely, Albert Einstein", html: "Dear Emmy Noether, Welcome to my newsletter. We are doing hard sciences here. Sincerely, Albert Einstein", }, }, Email { sender: "albert@einstein.com", receiver: "elie@cartan.com", message: Message { subject: "Issue No. 1", text: "Dear Elie Cartan, Welcome to my newsletter. We are doing hard sciences here. Sincerely, Albert Einstein", html: "Dear Elie Cartan, Welcome to my newsletter. We are doing hard sciences here. Sincerely, Albert Einstein", }, }, ], } Should an email be sent to 4 recipients? Yes (y) or no (n)
```
Confirm y
if you are ready to go.
For AWS SES, define environment variables AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
. Source your environment .env
in your current shell:
bash
set -a && source .env && set +a
For postgres, the database url is constructed as follows: postgresql://db_user:db_password@db_host:db_port/db_name
.
Therefore, set the following environment variables in your environment .env
:
DB_HOST
DB_PORT
DB_USER
DB_PASSWORD
DB_NAME
Source your environment again:
bash
set -a && source .env && set +a
Build and install Pigeon binary to ~/.cargo/bin
:
``` bash git clone git@github.com:quambene/pigeon-rs.git cd pigeon-rs
echo "nightly" > rust-toolchain
cargo install --path . ```
Add $HOME/.cargo/bin
to your PATH
:
bash
export PATH="$HOME/.cargo/bin:$PATH"
These numbers may be outdated. Do your own research.
emails/month | Pigeon+AWS* | Mailchimp Marketing* | Sendgrid API* | Sendgrid Marketing* --------- | --------- | --------- | --------- | --------- 5,000 | $4 | $9.99 | $14.95 | $15 10,000 | $4 | $20.99 | $14.95 | $15 100,000 | $4 | $78.99 | $29.95 | $120
*Price per month
provider | daily limit --------- | --------- Pigeon+AWS | 50,000 Mailchimp | equals monthly limit Sendgrid | equals monthly limit
You need to have Rust installed on your system and nightly toolchain activated.