domain: docs.buttondown.com · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Steps
POST subject and body to https://api.buttondown.com/v1/emails — as of the 2026-04-01 API version this creates a draft by default rather than sending
Buttondown auto-detects Markdown vs. rich HTML body content, or force a mode with a <!-- buttondown-editor-mode: fancy|plaintext --> comment
To actually send, explicitly set status to about_to_send, which requires a one-time confirmation step (first attempt returns a sending_requires_confirmation error)
To send a draft to specific recipients for review rather than a full broadcast, POST to /v1/emails/{id}/send-draft with subscribers and/or recipients arrays
Use tag-based filters on the email object to target a subset of subscribers for the real send
Known gotchas
Since the 2026-04-01 defaults change, omitting status creates a draft, not a scheduled/sent email — older automation scripts that expect auto-send will now just create drafts
Email bodies starting with a YAML frontmatter block (---) are rejected with body_contains_frontmatter unless you add the X-Buttondown-Live-Dangerously header
send-draft is for reviewing drafts with select recipients, not the mechanism for the final broadcast send
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