Email Templates

Administrators manage shared email templates under Project Board > Email Templates.

The plugin has two template areas:

  • Immediate notification emails for issue activity.
  • Daily digest emails for grouped summary updates.

Templates are stored in WordPress options and rendered server-side before email delivery.

Immediate Notification Template

The immediate notification template is used for activity emails such as comments, mentions, assignments, status changes, due date changes, and priority changes.

Subject Tokens

Subject templates support these placeholder tokens:

Token Output
{{issue_title}} Issue title.
{{actor_name}} Display name of the user who performed the activity.
{{performed_by}} Same value as {{actor_name}}.
{{event_label}} Human-readable event label.
{{site_name}} Site title.
{{site_title}} Site title.
{{site_tagline}} Site tagline.
{{site_logo_url}} Site icon URL.
{{site_icon_url}} Site icon URL.
{{notifications_url}} Link to the current user’s notification settings.
{{event_time}} Event time formatted with the site’s date and time format.
{{issue_url}} Link to the issue on the board.

Body Blocks

The body editor only allows a controlled set of blocks. The custom Alpaca Issue Tracker blocks are:

Block Purpose
Issue Title Renders the issue title.
Performed By Renders the activity actor.
Event Label Renders the event label.
Full Comment Content Renders comment text and attachment links. This block is required.
Issue Link Renders a link to open the issue.
Site Title Renders the site title.
Site Tagline Renders the site tagline when one exists.
Site Icon Renders the site icon when one exists.
Event Time Renders the formatted event time.

The Full Comment Content block is required so comment-driven emails keep the actual comment content in the template. If it is missing, the template save is rejected.

Daily Digest Template

The daily digest template is used when users enable the daily digest in My Notifications.

Subject Tokens

Digest subject templates support these placeholder tokens:

Token Output
{{site_title}} Site title.
{{site_tagline}} Site tagline.
{{notifications_url}} Link to the current user’s notification settings.
{{digest_day}} Human-readable digest day.
{{issue_count}} Number of issues included in the digest payload.
{{activity_count}} Number of activity items included in the digest payload.
{{new_item_count}} Number of new items included in the digest payload.

Body Blocks

The daily digest editor supports these custom blocks:

Block Required Purpose
Site Icon No Renders the site icon when one exists.
Issues Falling Due Yes Renders the deadline-watch digest section.
My Issues Yes Renders followed or relevant issue activity.
New Items Yes Renders newly created issue activity.

Required digest section blocks are locked so the digest keeps its core structure. If any required section block is removed, the template save is rejected.

Storage

Template values are stored as WordPress options:

Option Purpose
alpaca_notification_email_subject_template Immediate notification email subject.
alpaca_notification_email_body_template Immediate notification email body block markup.
alpaca_daily_digest_subject_template Daily digest email subject.
alpaca_daily_digest_body_template Daily digest email body block markup.

Legacy daily digest preamble and postscript options are read during migration, then normalized into the body template.

Reset Behavior

Resetting a template restores the plugin default subject and body for that template type.

Developer Notes

  • Template bodies are stored as serialized block markup.
  • Only allowlisted blocks can be saved.
  • Immediate notification rendering happens through the notification email render helpers.
  • Daily digest rendering happens through the daily digest render helpers.
  • Daily digest section output can be extended with the digest filters documented in …/reference/daily-digest.md.