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Sending Your First Message

In this tutorial you will install Titlani, generate a Misfin identity certificate, and send your first message using the CLI.

Time: ~10 minutes | Difficulty: Beginner

Prerequisites

  • Python 3.13+
  • A Misfin server to send to (or use a test server)

Step 1: Install Titlani

uv add titlani

Or with pip:

pip install titlani

Verify the installation:

titlani version

Step 2: Generate Your Identity

Every Misfin participant is identified by a self-signed certificate. Generate yours:

titlani identity generate alice example.com --blurb "Alice Smith"

This creates:

File Description
alice.pem Your identity certificate
alice.key Your private key

Warning

Keep alice.key secret. Anyone with your private key can impersonate you.

Inspect your new identity:

titlani identity info alice.pem

Address:     alice@example.com
Blurb:       Alice Smith
Hostname:    example.com
Fingerprint: a1b2c3d4e5f6...
Not Before:  2025-01-01 00:00:00
Not After:   2026-01-01 00:00:00

The identity embeds your mailbox name, hostname, and blurb directly in the certificate using Misfin-specific fields.

Step 3: Send a Message

Now send a message to another Misfin address:

titlani send bob@remote.host "Hello from Misfin!" \
    --cert alice.pem --key alice.key \
    --subject "Greetings"

The --subject flag prepends a # Greetings heading to the message body.

Step 4: Read the Response

The server responds with a status code and metadata:

20 a1b2c3d4e5f6...

This means:

  • 20 — Success! The message was delivered.
  • a1b2c3d4... — The recipient's certificate fingerprint.

If something went wrong, you might see:

Status Meaning
51 Mailbox not found
53 Domain not serviced by this server
59 Bad request (malformed message)
60 Certificate required

See the full Status Codes reference for details.

What You Learned

  • How to generate a Misfin identity certificate
  • How to send a message with the titlani send command
  • How to interpret the server's response

Next Steps