Week 11: Sprint 5 Kickoff — Email Notifications

Phase: Sprint 5 — Email Notifications
Due by Wednesday: email-design.md PR merged (Tech Lead owns this)
Due by Friday: Sprint 5 issue assigned + branch started

Goal

Before a single line of email code is written, the team agrees on how email works. This sprint repeats the design-first pattern from Sprint 2.

Monday

Read the Sprint 5 doc. The two key decisions this week:

1. Which email provider? Resend is recommended — free tier, simple Python SDK, no SMTP configuration needed. Sign up at resend.com and get an API key. Do NOT commit it.

2. Synchronous or async sending? Use FastAPI BackgroundTasks — the HTTP response returns immediately while the email sends in the background. This matters because sending email can take 1–2 seconds.

Tech Lead: Open the "Email Design" issue and start docs/email-design.md today.

Everyone else: Comment on the Email Design issue with your concerns or questions before Wednesday.

Wednesday

Tech Lead: email-design.md PR must be merged by end of day. It must specify:

• Which provider (and why)
• The send_email() function signature
• How tests override the sender (dependency injection pattern)
• Required environment variables

Backend: Once the design doc is merged:

uv add resend

Create app/email.py with the send_email() function. Do NOT connect it to any route yet — get the function working in isolation first, with a simple test script.

DevOps: Set up the RESEND_API_KEY secret in Render. Add a dummy value to the CI workflow so tests pass without a real key.

Thursday–Friday

• Backend: Hook send_email() into POST /jobs/{id}/apply
• QA: Write the email test fixture that overrides send_email with a no-op
• Frontend: Add the "confirmation email sent" message to the apply flow

Week 11 checklist

• [ ] email-design.md is merged (Tech Lead responsible)
• [ ] You have read and commented on email-design.md
• [ ] RESEND_API_KEY is in Render environment (DevOps)
• [ ] Sprint 5 issue assigned to you
• [ ] Branch created, first commit pushed
• [ ] Weekly Reflection submitted in Canvas