Google App Engine: Account validation via email confirmation

Question

My app does not use the Google Users service, but instead, I've created a custom Account kind to handle users:

class Account(ndb.Model):
    username = ndb.StringProperty(required = True)
    pw_hash = ndb.StringProperty(required = True)
    email = ndb.StringProperty(required = True)
    created = ndb.DateTimeProperty(auto_now_add = True)

What is the best method to handle user account verification via email? I'm fairly new to this, and I have not been exposed to how email verification would work.

I would guess that when an Account entity is created, an email would be sent via the mail module to the email provided during sign up. The email would contain a 'verify' link. What would this link look like, and how would it work?

Any tip on where to get started would be appreciated.

Answer 1

You can store an extra property "hashedLink" in Account,which will be a md5sum of random words. Send the "hashedLink" in email as /url/activate?link=hashedLink
Whenever user clicks on the link, use the hashedLink to activate the account of the user.
You can use the same hashedLink attribute for "Forgot password" feature.