Glossary
The bigfoot is a costume the UI wears, not a religion the codebase practices. UI copy leans hard into the theme; the code underneath stays boring on purpose. Both vocabularies, side by side:
| Field term | What it actually is | Boring code name |
|---|---|---|
| Sighting | An email your app sent | Email |
| Footprint | One SES event on an email’s timeline — delivered, opened, clicked, bounced, complained, rejected, delayed | EmailEvent |
| Trail Log | The live activity feed | activity feed LiveView |
| Sighting Report | The email inspector side-sheet: preview, headers, timeline, raw payloads | email detail view |
| Do-Not-Disturb Registry | The suppression list | Suppression |
| Base Camp | The SES connection & settings screen | source/settings LiveView |
| Field Guide | The documentation | you are here |
| The Guard | Suppression check + complaint-rate circuit breaker | SquatchMail.Guard |
| Watchtower | Opt-in Swoosh adapter that blocks suppressed/paused sends | SquatchMail.Adapters.Watchtower |
| The Pruner | Retention sweeper | SquatchMail.Pruner |
| Break Camp | Disconnecting SES | teardown |
| “The trail went cold: {reason}” | An error message | an error message |
| “TRACKING LIVE” | The LiveView socket is connected | websocket status |
House rules for contributors
Two vocabularies, one hard line between them:
- Code names are boring and professional.
Email,EmailEvent,Suppression. Never bigfoot-themed identifiers in modules, schemas, tables, or function names. A migration namedcreate_footprintswill be asked to leave. - Bigfoot flavor is for UI copy, README prose, and docs only. Empty states, buttons, loading text — go wild there. “No sightings yet. The forest is quiet… too quiet.” is exemplary.
def track_squatch/2is a crime.
This split is what keeps the joke funny at year three: the whimsy lives where humans read, and the code stays greppable, reviewable, and dull as good plumbing.
Selected field idioms
- “Big footprint. Tiny bill.” — the value proposition. SES costs pennies; SquatchMail adds observability without adding a vendor invoice.
- “Your emails are out there.” — they are. SquatchMail finds them.
- “This sighting is unconfirmed. Probably a bear.” — the 404 page, and a healthy attitude toward unverified reports in general.