Email Digest

Email Digest Workflow

Process incoming emails into structured memories, extract action items, and surface threads that need attention.

When to Use

• During autonomous heartbeats to check for new mail since the last digest, but only when Gmail is connected and integrations.gmail.heartbeat_digest_enabled is true or the active heartbeat task/goal carries explicit user authorization for this check
• When the user asks "what's in my inbox" or "any important emails"
• When a goal depends on information that may have arrived via email
• When preparing a daily briefing that includes email highlights

Step-by-Step Methodology

1. Check authorization: In heartbeat, only proceed if the runtime exposed this skill because the user granted autonomous Gmail digest access. If setup/status indicates the grant is missing, stop and queue a short request for the user to enable background email checks.
2. Check recency: Use recall to find when the last email digest ran. Avoid re-processing messages already ingested.
3. Check setup: Call gmail_setup_status. If Gmail is not connected, record the missing setup clearly and stop; do not loop.
4. List new emails: Call email_list with a date filter to fetch unread or recent messages. Start with the inbox; expand to other labels only if the user has configured them.
5. Triage by sender and subject: Scan the list for high-signal indicators -- known contacts, reply chains the user is on, calendar invites, and keywords matching active goals.
6. Read priority threads: Use email_read on the top 5-10 most relevant messages. Do not read every email; batch processing wastes energy and context.
7. Extract action items: For each important email, identify: (a) what is being asked, (b) who is asking, (c) any deadline mentioned, (d) whether a reply is expected.
8. Store findings: Respect integrations.gmail.memory_policy. If it is forget, do not use remember or ingest_emails for email-derived content. If it is ask, queue a user-facing choice before storing. If it is remember, persist action items as episodic memories with high importance, tagged with the sender, thread ID, and any relevant goal.
9. Surface urgency: If an email requires a time-sensitive response, flag it in the heartbeat result so it can be raised to the user at next opportunity.

Quality Guidelines

• Never store raw email bodies as memories. Summarize and extract the salient points.
• Respect privacy: do not log email content to external services. All storage stays in the local Postgres brain.
• Google OAuth authorization is not the same as Hexis autonomy authorization. A connected Gmail account does not imply permission for background heartbeat reading.
• When multiple emails belong to the same thread, consolidate into a single memory rather than creating duplicates.
• If credentials are missing or expired, fail gracefully. If gmail_setup_status says Google sign-in is ready, queue a short user-facing request that they connect Gmail from chat or CLI; do not start or complete sign-in during heartbeat.
• Prefer recalling existing contact memories to enrich email context (who is this person, what is the relationship).