Send a pod by email

A packed pod is a regular .html attachment. Most email clients open HTML attachments either inline (Gmail with "View raw" / "Open in new tab") or via "Download → open in browser" — both work.

The flow

1. Build the pod:

   gemmapod build pod.toml --key owner.key --out my-agent.html

2. Attach the .html to a new email. Modern Gmail / Outlook / Apple Mail accept the attachment fine; some corporate filters strip .html attachments, in which case wrap it in a .zip or host it on gemmapod.com/<id>.

3. Recipient opens the attachment. The browser runs GemmaPod.boot(), verifies the signed manifest, and starts chatting.

Caveats

file:// doesn't reach localhost broker

If your manifest's signalUrl is ws://localhost:8080/signal and the recipient opens the attachment from disk, the WebRTC handshake fails — there's no broker on the recipient's localhost. The pod will fall back to the in-browser WebGPU path only if transport.fallback is configured in the manifest. Otherwise the pod sits unable to connect.

For pods you actually intend to send by email, use a public signaling URL: either wss://signal.gemmapod.com/signal or your own self-hosted broker.

Gmail and inline preview

Gmail strips JavaScript from inline HTML previews. Recipients need to download the attachment and open it locally (or click "View" / "Download" depending on the client). This is correct behaviour from Gmail's side; the pod refuses to render anyway if Gmail somehow loaded it inline without scripts.

Corporate proxy MITM

Some corporate proxies rewrite HTML attachments to inject tracking banners. If they do, the signed manifest still verifies (it lives in the inlined base64 __GEMMAPOD_MANIFEST_B64 and the signature covers its own bytes, not the surrounding HTML). But the page might display a proxy warning above the pod widget. Not a security failure — just an aesthetic note.

If the proxy strips inlined scripts entirely, the pod won't boot, and the page will show its plain HTML fallback (a static header element).

See also

• Build your first pod with the CLI
• Deploy to a stable URL instead
• Security model — re-hosting and tampering