sentinel

name	sentinel
disable-model-invocation	true
description	Manage the Sentinel background daemon that monitors corporate email (Exchange) and Telegram for urgent messages. Start, stop, check status, view logs, and configure monitoring. EXPLICIT INVOCATION ONLY - daemons live on the always-on service host and are off-limits without CEO sign-off.
argument-hint	[start|stop|status|logs|config]
allowed-tools	Bash(python3:*), Read
model	haiku
metadata	{"author":"Misha Hanin","email":"[e-mail]","version":"1.2"}
x-heading-orchestration	{"parallel_safe":false,"shared_state":[".sentinel/"],"triggers":["sentinel","start sentinel","stop sentinel","comms monitor"]}
x-heading-capability	{"what":"Manages the Sentinel background daemon that watches Exchange email and Telegram for urgent messages, scores urgency, evaluates meeting invites against the CEO Calendar Policy, and alerts via Telegram.\n","how":"Explicit only: type /sentinel [start|stop|status|logs|config]; not auto-triggered. Drives scripts/sentinel.py; default starts the daemon if it is not already running and shows status.\n","when":"Use to start, stop, or check the comms-monitoring daemon. For a one-off inbox triage use /email-intel; for ad-hoc Telegram use /telegram.\n"}
x-heading-routing	{"category":"Operations","triggers":["NEVER auto-trigger. Explicit `/sentinel` only."],"exclusions":["N/A"],"compound":"No","router":"manual"}

Sentinel -- Unified Comms Monitor

Manage the Sentinel background daemon that monitors corporate email (Exchange) and Telegram for urgent messages.

Trigger

Activate when the user says: "sentinel", "/sentinel", "start sentinel", "stop sentinel", "sentinel status", "check sentinel", "is sentinel running", "comms monitor", or asks about the background monitoring system.

Actions

Parse the user's intent and run the appropriate command:

Default (no arguments / just "/sentinel")

Check status first. If Sentinel is already running, show the status. If it is NOT running, start it in daemon mode automatically, then show the status.

python scripts/sentinel.py --status
# If output says "NOT running" -> start daemon, then show status again:
python scripts/sentinel.py --daemon && python scripts/sentinel.py --status

Start Sentinel (foreground)

python scripts/sentinel.py

Start Sentinel (background/headless)

python scripts/sentinel.py --daemon

Test mode (single cycle, dry-run, notifications to Saved Messages)

python scripts/sentinel.py --test

Check status

python scripts/sentinel.py --status

Stop daemon

python scripts/sentinel.py --stop

View recent logs

tail -50 .sentinel/sentinel.log

Edit configuration

Read and present the live config for editing. The real config is private instance data at <data-root>/config/sentinel_config.yaml (resolved via get_data_config_dir()); the engine ships scripts/sentinel_config.example.yaml as the template/fallback. On the transitional CEO workspace the data root is in-tree, so the live file is config/sentinel_config.yaml.

Configuration

Config file: config/sentinel_config.yaml (private data-config; engine fallback scripts/sentinel_config.example.yaml)

Key settings:

• general.check_interval_minutes -- polling frequency (default: 15)
• general.urgency_threshold -- minimum score to trigger notification (default: 7, scale 1-10)
• email.vip_senders -- emails that always get elevated priority
• email.ignore_patterns -- senders/patterns to skip entirely
• telegram.monitored_chats -- specific groups/channels to watch
• notification.target_chat -- where urgent alerts go (default: "Urgent Stuff for M")
• digest.morning_time / digest.evening_time -- daily summary times (local TZ)
• calendar.enabled -- enable meeting invite monitoring (default: true)
• calendar.auto_accept -- auto-accept policy-compliant invites
• calendar.auto_decline -- auto-decline non-compliant invites (non-VIP)
• calendar.escalate_vip -- always escalate VIP/external senders
• calendar.protected_blocks -- protected time windows from CEO Calendar Policy
• calendar.day_themes -- weekly theme structure for topic alignment

Prerequisites

• ANTHROPIC_API_KEY must be set in .env (get from console.anthropic.com)
• Telegram session must be authenticated (run /telegram setup if needed)
• Exchange credentials in .env (EXCHANGE_EMAIL, EXCHANGE_PASSWORD, EXCHANGE_SERVER)

Runtime Files

• .sentinel/state.json -- persistent state (processed IDs, dedup hashes)
• .sentinel/sentinel.log -- rotating log (5MB x 3 files)
• .sentinel/sentinel.pid -- process ID for management

Features

Email Analysis

Sentinel analyzes all incoming emails via Claude API and provides CEO-specific recommended actions:

• Reply needed, Forward to delegate, Schedule follow-up, Approve/Decide, FYI only, Escalate

Meeting Invite Monitoring

Sentinel monitors Exchange meeting invites and evaluates them against the CEO Calendar Policy (reference/ceo-calendar-policy.md):

• Auto-accepts policy-compliant invites
• Auto-declines non-compliant invites from internal senders with a proposed alternative time
• Escalates VIP/external sender invites and edge cases to Misha via Telegram
• All decisions (accept, decline, escalate) are notified via Telegram

Output

When asked about Sentinel, report:

1. Running status (PID, last check time)
2. Today's stats (emails, TG messages, urgent alerts, invite decisions)
3. Any recent errors from the log