Sub-ticket of PLUTO-126 Email retry/failure backstop gap (pre-existing, exposed by PLUTO-38 cron-drop): after dropping the dead drain-email-outbox cron, Pluto has NO email retry and NO failure alert. A failed send (SMTP timeout) strands the row 'pending' forever — no retry, no operator alert (the alert-after-5-attempts only ever fired from the now-dead drain, which never functioned anyway). Invisible today (0 pending). Live happy-path = Next.js after()-hook send. Restore options: (a) pg_net+pg_cron */5 GATED drain (sanctioned path; vercel.json CANNOT host sub-daily cron — fails the whole build); (b) external scheduler; (c) minimum cheap win = alert-on-strand observability (appEvents warn when a row sits pending > N min). Disposition: reliability vs cron-cost — Elazar's call. Not urgent. · pluto