email-triage-system

name	email-triage-system
description	Two-layer Gmail triage system — zero-LLM noise archiving (Janitor) + LLM-powered daily review (Reviewer) — keeps your inbox clean with minimal config
version	1.0.0
author	Dustin Chadwick (@ShaggyD)
tags	["gmail","triage","inbox-zero","janitor","review","productivity"]

Email Triage System

A two-layer email triage pipeline that separates noise from signal with zero ongoing cognitive load.

Layer 1 — The Janitor is a zero-LLM-cost CLI cron job that batch-archives known noise (promos, social, newsletters, notifications) every 15 minutes using Gmail API pattern matching. It builds a growing noise-sender database and logs summaries.

Layer 2 — The Reviewer is an agent profile that reads the Janitor's logs once daily, applies LLM reasoning to the remaining non-bulk email, and surfaces a clean triage summary with categories and escalations.

Key constraint: Zero new OAuth setup — reuse your existing Gmail API token. No LLM calls for the Janitor. Existing label conventions are the source of truth for noise classification.

---

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────┐
│         Gmail Inbox         │
│  (noise + real email)       │
└──────────┬──────────────────┘
           │  poll every 15 min
           ▼
┌─────────────────────────────┐
│  Layer 1: The Janitor (CLI) │  ← zero LLM cost
│  Pattern matching engine    │
│  Noise-sender database      │
│  Safe-sender allowlist      │
│  Batch archive via API      │
└──────────┬──────────────────┘
           │  structured JSON logs
           ▼
┌─────────────────────────────┐
│  Layer 2: The Reviewer      │  ← LLM-powered, daily
│  (Agent profile)            │
│  Reads Janitor logs         │
│  Fetches remaining inbox    │
│  LLM categorization         │
│  Action items & escalations │
└──────────┬──────────────────┘
           │  structured daily brief
           ▼
┌─────────────────────────────┐
│     Daily Triage Brief      │
│  (terminal, Discord, chat)  │
└─────────────────────────────┘

---

Layer 1: The Janitor (CLI Tool)

How It Works

1. Scans your Gmail inbox every N minutes (configurable, default 15) via cron
2. Matches emails by sender address + subject-line keywords against a noise-sender database
3. Batch-archives matched emails using Gmail API modify() with removeLabelIds: ['INBOX'] + optional category label
4. Skips emails from safe-sender allowlist
5. Logs structured JSON to a configurable log directory
6. Supports --dry-run for safe validation

Setup

1. Prerequisites

# Python 3.10+
python --version

# Gmail API credentials
# You need a Google Cloud project with Gmail API enabled
# and OAuth 2.0 credentials (Desktop Application type)
# saved at a known path (default: ~/.google/gmail-token.json)

2. Gmail API Authentication

Follow the setup in references/gmail-api-setup.md to:

• Create a Google Cloud project
• Enable the Gmail API
• Configure the OAuth consent screen
• Download credentials and generate a refresh token

3. Configuration

Copy the template configuration:

mkdir -p ~/.config/email-janitor
cp templates/config.yaml ~/.config/email-janitor/config.yaml
cp templates/noise-senders.yaml ~/.config/email-janitor/noise-senders.yaml
cp templates/safe-senders.yaml ~/.config/email-janitor/safe-senders.yaml

Edit config.yaml to set your:

• Gmail credentials path
• Noise-sender database path
• Safe-sender path
• Log directory
• Check interval (used by cron, not by the tool itself)

4. Cron Setup

Add a 15-minute cron entry:

crontab -e
# Add:
*/15 * * * * cd /path/to/email-janitor && python janitor.py >> ~/.config/email-janitor/logs/cron.log 2>&1

Usage

# Normal run — archives noise
python janitor.py

# Dry run — shows what would be archived, no mutations
python janitor.py --dry-run

# Custom config path
python janitor.py --config ~/.config/email-janitor/config.yaml

# Custom credential path
python janitor.py --creds /path/to/gmail-token.json

Configuration Reference

config.yaml:

# Gmail API
credentials_path: ~/.google/gmail-token.json
# Use existing token file — the tool handles token refresh

# Noise-sender database
noise_db_path: ~/.config/email-janitor/noise-senders.yaml

# Safe-sender allowlist
safe_senders_path: ~/.config/email-janitor/safe-senders.yaml

# Logging
log_dir: ~/.config/email-janitor/logs
log_format: jsonl  # jsonl or text

# Labels
# The Janitor applies existing labels before removing from INBOX.
# Set to false to archive without labeling.
apply_labels: true

# Behavior
batch_size: 50        # Gmail API batch size
rate_limit_rps: 5     # Requests per second (respect Gmail quota)

noise-senders.yaml: See the template in templates/noise-senders.yaml. Categories include:

• promotions — marketing, promos, deals, flash sales
• newsletters — regular digests, newsletter platforms
• social — social platform notifications
• services — transactional/account emails (accounting, cloud, dev tools)
• security — security alerts (detected but NOT archived, logged for Reviewer)

safe-senders.yaml: List of email addresses or domains that are NEVER touched. Support glob patterns.

Output Format (JSONL)

Each run produces a JSONL file with one line per batch operation:

{"timestamp": "2026-05-23T10:15:00Z", "total_processed": 42, "archived": 38, "skipped_safe": 3, "security_logged": 1, "categories": {"promotions": 12, "newsletters": 15, "social": 8, "services": 3}, "errors": [], "duration_seconds": 4.2}

---

Layer 2: The Reviewer (Agent Profile)

How It Works

1. Runs once daily (configurable schedule)
2. Reads the latest Janitor log to see what was archived
3. Fetches remaining inbox emails (those NOT caught by Janitor)
4. Applies LLM reasoning to categorize each email into one of four categories:
   • action_required — needs a response or task
   • important_read — worth reading carefully
   • worth_flagging — notable but not urgent
   • fyi — informational, no action needed
5. Respects the same safe-sender allowlist
6. Produces a structured review JSON and a human-readable markdown brief

Setup

1. Create an Agent Profile

This skill works with any agent platform. For Hermes Agent:

# Create profile directory
mkdir -p ~/.hermes/profiles/email-reviewer/
# Copy SOUL.md from templates
cp templates/reviewer-soul.md ~/.hermes/profiles/email-reviewer/SOUL.md

2. Configure the Cron

# Daily at 06:00
0 6 * * * cd /path/to/email-reviewer && python reviewer.py >> ~/.config/email-janitor/logs/reviewer-cron.log 2>&1

Output

Structured review JSON:

{
  "date": "2026-05-23",
  "total_reviewed": 8,
  "categories": {
    "action_required": 2,
    "important_read": 3,
    "worth_flagging": 1,
    "fyi": 2
  },
  "action_items": [
    {"subject": "Q3 Budget Approval Needed", "from": "[e-mail]", "suggested_reply": "Will review and approve by EOD"}
  ],
  "escalations": [
    {"subject": "Security Alert: New Login", "from": "[e-mail]", "priority": "high"}
  ],
  "safe_sender_emails": 1,
  "janitor_log_ref": "2026-05-23T10-15-00.jsonl"
}

Human-readable brief (markdown):

## Daily Email Triage — 2026-05-23

### Action Required (2)
- **Q3 Budget Approval Needed** — [e-mail]
  → Suggested: Will review and approve by EOD
- **Client Meeting Confirmation** — [e-mail]
  → Suggested: Confirmed, see you Tuesday at 2pm

### Important (3)
- Platform migration status update from engineering
- New feature proposal from product team
- Weekly analytics digest

### Worth Flagging (1)
- Conference CFP deadline extension

### Escalations ⚠️
- **Security Alert: New Login** — from Colorado IP (approved device)

### Stats
- 38 emails archived by Janitor
- 8 emails reviewed
- 2 require action

---

Noise-Sender Categories

promotions

Sender domains matching known marketing platforms OR subject contains promo keywords (sale, discount, offer ends, coupon, % off, flash sale, limited time).

Common platforms: sendgrid.net, mailchimp.com, constantcontact.com, hubspot.com, klaviyo.com, braze.com, iterable.com

newsletters

Regular digests from content platforms and newsletter services.

Common platforms: substack.com, medium.com, ghost.io, convertkit.com, buttondown.email, beehiiv.com Content platforms: youtube.com, reddit.com, pinterest.com

social

Notifications from social platforms.

Platforms: twitter.com, x.com, linkedin.com, facebook.com, instagram.com, tiktok.com, threads.net, discord.com, slack.com

services

Transactional/account emails from cloud platforms, dev tools, productivity apps, and finance services.

Examples: aws., gcp., vercel.com, github.com (non-security), notion.so, stripe.com

security

Security alerts — detected but NOT archived. Passed through to the Reviewer for prioritization.

Patterns: security@, alert@, alerts@ for major platforms. Subject lines containing security alert, new sign-in, password changed, 2FA, verification code.

---

Success Metrics

Metric	Target	How Measured
Noise capture rate	>=90% of known-category noise within interval	Spot-check inbox vs logs over 7 days
False-positive rate	<1% of archived emails	Manual audit of first 500 archived emails
Cron reliability	100% of scheduled runs execute without error over 30 days	Cron log + Janitor log integrity check
Zero LLM cost (Janitor)	$0.00 in API spend	Billing + token usage report
Review coverage	100% of non-bulk inbox emails reviewed each cycle	Count in review JSON vs inbox diff
Brief readiness	Brief is actionable without re-reading source emails	User satisfaction

---

Files

File	Purpose
janitor.py	Zero-LLM Gmail noise archiving CLI script
SKILL.md	This document
README.md	Quick-start guide
templates/config.yaml	Janitor configuration template
templates/noise-senders.yaml	Noise-sender database with seed patterns
templates/safe-senders.yaml	Safe-sender allowlist template
templates/reviewer-soul.md	Agent profile SOUL.md template for Reviewer
references/gmail-api-setup.md	Gmail API OAuth setup guide
references/label-conventions.md	Label hierarchy conventions
references/troubleshooting.md	Common issues and fixes

---

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• Gmail API enabled Google Cloud project
• OAuth 2.0 credentials for Desktop Application
• Cron (Linux/macOS) or Task Scheduler (Windows)

License

MIT — use freely, adapt openly, attribute where meaningful.

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Maintained by Dustin "Dusty" Chadwick (@ShaggyD)