# Inbox API

Your app already sends email through Rasket. The Inbox API lets it work the other half too: open support conversations, read them, reply, and hear about every change — from the same API and the same key.

## Start here

| Guide | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| [Add a support inbox to your app](https://www.rasket.com/docs/inbox-api/support-inbox) | A Contact us form opens a conversation, in five minutes. |
| [Route replies to your emails](https://www.rasket.com/docs/inbox-api/replies) | One field on `POST /emails`. |
| [Let an agent triage](https://www.rasket.com/docs/inbox-api/agents) | MCP tools for Claude, Cursor and others. |

## What you can do

- **Open a conversation from your app** — a Contact us form, an in-app message, a cancellation reason. It lands in a channel like `support@`, next to email.
- **Bring replies home** — add `inbox` to an email you send, and when the customer replies it becomes a conversation linked to that email.
- **Read, reply and organise** — list and search conversations, reply from the channel's address, add internal notes, assign, and set open, pending or done.
- **React to changes** — six webhook events tell your server when something happens.

Every call is on the [Inbox API reference](https://www.rasket.com/docs/api-reference/inbox), and the six events are on [Events](https://www.rasket.com/docs/events).

## The pieces

| Object | What it is |
| --- | --- |
| `Channel` | A shared address your team answers, like support@lumen.app. The API only ever sees channels. |
| `Conversation` | One thread with a customer: their messages, your replies, internal notes, an assignee and a status. |
| `Message` | Something the customer wrote (by email or through your app), or a reply your team sent. |
| `Note` | Internal. Never sent to the customer. |

## Keys and access

Inbox access is set on each API key, separately from what the key may send. Existing keys have none — a Full access key too. A team admin sets it in the dashboard under API keys, and can limit the key to some channels.

| Inbox access | Can |
| --- | --- |
| `None` | The default. The key can't see the inbox. |
| `Open conversations only` | Can create conversations and nothing else. Use it for a form. |
| `Read` | List, read and search. |
| `Read and reply` | Also reply, add notes, assign, and change status, labels and folders. |

An AI agent or another app connects with OAuth instead, and acts as the person who connected it: `inbox:read` to read, `inbox:write` to write. See the [MCP server](https://www.rasket.com/docs/mcp).

> Personal mailboxes are private to their person. No key, app or agent can reach them, and their IDs answer `404`.

## What it costs

Included with your Inbox seats. A conversation your app opens counts as received mail, which is free. Replies count as sends, like any other email.

## Not yet

A chat widget you can drop into your site is planned separately.