email-inbound-routes

Create an inbound route

Creates a routing rule that delivers matching inbound mail on one of your domains to a mailbox, or drops it. Routes are evaluated in order, lowest priority first, and a mailbox's own address always matches ahead of any route you create. Mail that no route matches is still received as a plain received email. The domain must be one of your workspace's inbound-enabled domains. Some fields depend on each other, and that dependency is described on the field itself. Breaking one of those rules returns 422.

post/v1/email/inbound-routes

Request

  • Base URL: https://us1.platform.bird.com
  • URL: https://us1.platform.bird.com/v1/email/inbound-routes
  • Auth: one of:
    • HTTP bearer
    • API key in cookie bird_session

Headers

Idempotency-Keystring

Client-supplied key. On operations supporting request deduplication, a retained response is replayed for duplicate requests with the same key within the idempotency window (3 hours by default). This protection requires a workspace, organization, or staff-account scope. User-only and unscoped unauthenticated operations, streams, and operations with a separate replay contract do not use this response replay.

On a supported operation, if idempotency protection is unavailable before execution, the API returns 503 IdempotencyUnavailable (E01033) without executing this attempt. Retry with backoff using the same key and request. An operation that takes effect before its response is retained can still execute again on retry.

Two distinct 409 errors signal misuse:

  • request_in_progress (E01004): The same key is currently being processed by a concurrent request. Wait briefly and retry. The lock expires within 30 seconds.
  • idempotency_key_reuse (E01005): The same key has already completed against a different request body or method. Generate a new key.

Recommended key format is <event-type>/<entity-id> (for example welcome-user/usr_abc123).

X-Workspace-Idstring

Workspace context for the request. Required for dashboard authentication and master keys. Workspace keys and access tokens already identify their workspace; send that workspace or omit the header. A different one is rejected.

X-Organization-Idstring

Organization context for the request. Required for dashboard authentication. An API key or access token carries its own organization, so send either that organization or no header at all; a different one is rejected.

Request body

domainstring required

The domain the route applies to. It has to be one of your inbound-enabled custom domains.

match_type'address' | 'catch_all' required

How the route matches recipients. address matches one local part and requires match_value. catch_all matches every recipient on the domain that nothing else matched.

match_valuestring

The local part an address route matches. Required for address routes. Stored lowercase.

action'deliver_to_mailbox' | 'drop' required

What happens to matching mail. deliver_to_mailbox delivers it to target_mailbox_id (required). drop discards it silently, with nothing stored and no webhook fired.

target_mailbox_idstring
priorityinteger

The order routes are tried in, lowest number first. Your own routes take a priority from 11 to 1000. The mailbox's own address always matches at priority 10, so a route can never pre-empt exact-address delivery.

enabledboolean

Whether the route is evaluated.

Example request

{
  "domain": "mail.acme.com",
  "match_type": "address",
  "match_value": "refunds",
  "action": "deliver_to_mailbox",
  "target_mailbox_id": "mbx_01krdgeqcxet5s7t44vh8rt9mg"
}

Response

Inbound route created.

idstring required
domainstring required

The domain the route applies to.

match_type'address' | 'catch_all' required

How the route matches recipients. address matches one local part. catch_all matches every recipient on the domain that nothing else matched.

match_valuestring nullable required

The local part an address route matches. null for catch_all routes.

action'deliver_to_mailbox' | 'drop' required

What happens to matching mail. deliver_to_mailbox delivers it to target_mailbox_id. drop discards it silently, with nothing stored and no webhook fired.

target_mailbox_idstring required
priorityinteger required

The order routes are tried in, lowest number first. Your own routes take a priority from 11 to 1000, and default to 100. A mailbox's own address always matches at priority 10.

enabledboolean required

Whether the route is evaluated. Disabled routes are kept but skipped.

created_atstring date-time required

When the route was created.

updated_atstring date-time required

When the route was last updated.

Example response

{
  "id": "ein_01krdgeqcxet5s7t44vh8rt9mg",
  "domain": "mail.acme.com",
  "match_value": "refunds",
  "target_mailbox_id": "mbx_01krdgeqcxet5s7t44vh8rt9mg"
}

Changes

No recorded changes to this operation across all 2 revisions of this API.