Wizard-skip via CLI-only deploy

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For a v0.16.6 deployment automated via configuration management (Ansible) where I want to skip the interactive /admin setup wizard entirely, can I pre-populate everything (admin Account, Domain, SystemSettings including defaultDomainId and defaultHostname, NetworkListeners, Certificates) via stalwart-cli apply --file plan.ndjson while running with STALWART_RECOVERY_ADMIN authentication? Does the wizard perform any irreplaceable steps not exposed via stalwart-cli apply?

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The answer is yes, and the docs explicitly describe exactly this pattern.

The wizard performs no irreplaceable steps. Everything the wizard does is accessible through the JMAP API / stalwart-cli apply. The documented fully-automated workflow is:

  1. Write config.json onto the host - it only needs to contain the DataStore object pointing at your database.
  2. Start Stalwart with STALWART_RECOVERY_MODE=1 and STALWART_RECOVERY_ADMIN=admin:<password> (from your secrets manager). This suspends all mail services and exposes only the management API on port 8080 (configurable via STALWART_RECOVERY_MODE_PORT).
  3. Run stalwart-cli apply --file plan.ndjson against the recovery listener to load your full configuration - accounts, domains, SystemSettings (including defaultDomainId / defaultHostname), NetworkListeners, Certificates, etc.
  4. Restart without the recovery variables to bring the server up in normal operation.

From that point forward, every subsequent change is another apply against the running server. The STALWART_RECOVERY_ADMIN credential also works against a normally-running server, so you don’t need to cycle through recovery mode for post-initial changes.

One thing to be aware of: apply is not inherently idempotent for create operations. To make your plan re-runnable, prefix each create block with a matching destroy for that object type (which is the shape stalwart-cli snapshot emits). On re-runs, the destroy pass clears existing objects and the create pass rebuilds them.

Relevant docs:

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