Social Inbox

Social Inbox

Answer the people who are already talking to you. Inbound replies are a different writing task from outbound engagement — someone came to your post, so the reply is a response, not an entrance — and Bolta uses a different server-side writer for each. Keeping them separate is the point of this skill.

When to use

Someone commented on the brand's post, mentioned the brand, or replied to a reply. The user wants to see it and respond.

Tools this skill uses

Prerequisites

• workspace_id via list-workspaces; auth is automatic, never ask for a key.
• Sending replies needs owner/admin/creator.
• Facebook and Instagram comments can be read but not replied to through Bolta today (Meta Advanced Access). Say so and offer the permalink instead of attempting a send.

Workflow

1. Pull the inbox

list-inbox-items(workspace_id). Each row carries a source:

• comment — someone commented on our post;
• hunter — an outbound reply draft awaiting a decision (that belongs to bolta-review-queue, but surface it so nothing is invisible);
• recurring / team — content drafts pending approval, not inbound;
• report — an agent report, read-only.

Filter to the inbound sources when the user asked about comments and mentions, but tell them what else is waiting.

2. Summarize before acting

Group by platform and by post. For each item give one line: who, what they said, and which of the brand's posts it is on. A list of twenty raw comments is not a summary — say "eight comments on the launch post, mostly asking about pricing; two on Threads about the integration".

3. Triage

Not every comment needs a reply. Sort into:

• Answer — a real question, a misunderstanding worth correcting, or someone who took the time to write something substantive.
• React — appreciation, agreement, a compliment. A like is the honest response; a written reply to "nice!" is filler.
• Leave — spam, bait, or an argument that a reply will only extend.
• Escalate — an angry customer, a factual complaint, anything legal or safety-adjacent. Do not draft a reply; tell the user it needs them.

Present the triage and let the user adjust it before you send anything.

4. Read the full context when replying

get-social-content(workspace_id, account_id, platform, target_id) for the thread. A comment often makes sense only against what was said above it, and a reply written from the snippet alone is how you answer a question nobody asked.

5. Draft

Always draft through a tool. Never compose the reply yourself. Reading the comment — with list-inbox-items, get-social-content, whatever — is the INPUT to drafting, not a substitute for it. A reply you write directly is in your voice, not the workspace's, and it silently bypasses the Voice Profile and Business DNA that are the whole reason the customer connected Bolta. Having read the row, the next call is a drafting tool.

Prefer the tool that matches the row:

• Hunter draft → it already has text. update-hunter-reply to revise, send-hunter-reply to send (optionally with content to do both at once).

• Comment on our post → draft first with draft-inbound-reply(account_id, target_url) (or platform + target_id). It reads the comment and the post it was left on, routes through the inbound writer, and returns text — it creates nothing and sends nothing. Then send the approved text with reply-to-social-content(account_id, platform, target_id, content).

  Use draft-inbound-reply, never draft-engagement-reply, for anything on our own content. They route to different server-side writers and picking the wrong one is silent: the reply comes back on-brand and reads as though a stranger wandered into the thread.

Inbound replies are short and direct. Answer the question in the first sentence. Do not thank people for engaging, do not restate their comment back to them, and do not turn a one-line answer into a paragraph.

6. Approve and send

Show the user each reply next to the comment it answers. Get an explicit go-ahead — these are public and attached to the brand's account. Batches are fine, but say how many are going out and to which platforms.

7. Verify

Confirm each send landed. For hunter replies, double-send is prevented server-side, so a retry after a timeout is safe. Report anything that failed and why, rather than reporting the batch as sent.

Definition of done

• Every inbound item is answered, reacted to, left with a reason, or escalated.
• Nothing was sent without approval.
• Items on platforms Bolta cannot reply to were handed over as permalinks, not silently dropped.
• The user knows what is still waiting.

Failure handling

• unsupported_platform on reply → Bolta cannot post there (Facebook, Instagram). Give the permalink; do not retry.
• credentials_expired → reconnect required; report and stop.
• 409 on update-hunter-reply → the reply was already sent. Do not resend; show its current state.
• Permission error → get-my-capabilities, name the missing role, do not retry.
• Empty inbox → say it is clear, and say when it was last checked.

Save this as a routine

For "check this every morning":

1. list-routine-templates() → social_inbox_engagement.
2. create-routine(...) with a schedule and the accounts to watch bound as source_bindings.
3. activate-routine(...).

Scheduled runs draft only and never send. Every reply lands in the review queue for a human — this template does not permit auto approval, and that is deliberate.