| name | executive-assistant |
| description | Run a comprehensive morning executive assistant sweep for {{OWNER_NAME}}: check today's calendar, scan Gmail for flagged/important emails, review Slack action items, run system probes (load/disk/gateway), scan infra alert channels (worldai-alerts, mcp-mail, ai-general), and post a concise briefing to {{OWNER_NAME}}'s DM. Use when a cron or direct request triggers the executive assistant sweep. |
Executive Assistant Sweep
Produce a concise morning briefing for {{OWNER_NAME}} covering schedule, email, and Slack, then post it to their DM channel.
Goal
Give {{OWNER_NAME}} one message that covers everything they need to be aware of right now — without fluff. Actionable items get explicit prompts ("Want me to draft a reply?").
Resolver recovery for scheduled jobs
The library currently contains both this canonical skill and a compatibility overlay under hermes-imports/executive-assistant. A bare skill_view(name='executive-assistant') can therefore report an ambiguous name, while a scheduled-job preamble may say the skill was skipped.
When that happens, do not conclude that the sweep workflow or user data is unavailable. Use the deterministic fallback chain:
skill_view(name='hermes-imports/executive-assistant') — picks the named overlay (no name collision).read_file ~/.hermes/skills/executive-assistant/SKILL.md (full path) — bypasses the resolver entirely and returns the canonical body. This is the reliable path when the resolver is wedged. skill_view with a trailing slash (e.g. executive-assistant/) is NOT a guaranteed escape hatch and may still return ambiguous.- Inspect
hermes-imports/executive-assistant only as a compatibility overlay — never as the canonical source.
Continue the sweep and retain any runtime-required missing-skill warning in the final report. This is resolver recovery, not a blocker. For a worked example, see references/2026-07-22-resolver-recovery-recipe.md.
Destination override + auto-delivery (refined 2026-07-23)
When the scheduled-job runtime says the final response is automatically delivered, the cron scheduler's destination is the authoritative sink. Concretely:
- A caller destination override in the cron prompt (e.g. "Deliver to #ai-general (NOT the operator's DM)") must still be honored in spirit: post the brief to the prompt-specified channel via the bot token (or xoxp fallback if the bot is locked out — see
references/delivery-fallback-recipe.md).
- Return the same brief as the cron scheduler's final response so the scheduler's auto-delivery does not produce a duplicate from a different path. Do NOT call
send_message from the cron session — the runtime's auto-delivery replaces any manual send.
- The two deliveries target the same channel when the prompt-caller's destination matches the scheduler's configured destination; they target different places when they diverge. Follow the prompt's explicit override if one is present, the scheduler's default otherwise.
Workflow
1. Calendar — what's happening today
gog calendar events --all -a {{ASSISTANT_EMAIL}} --days=1 --max=100 --json --results-only
- Pull events from all calendars:
{{PERSONAL_EMAIL}}, {{PRIMARY_WORK_EMAIL}}, {{SECONDARY_CALENDAR_EMAIL_1}}, {{SECONDARY_CALENDAR_EMAIL_2}}, {{SECONDARY_CALENDAR_EMAIL_3}}
- Include family/household events as context (not as action items)
- Group into sections: Now / Today (imminent), Tonight, Upcoming (next 2 days if unusual)
- Format:
HH:MM — event name in local time (America/Los_Angeles)
- Filter multi-week carry-forward events client-side —
--from/--to does NOT filter by event duration, only by start. Drop events whose start.dateTime is more than 24h before the window start (catches "Trip to Dublin"-style junk). See references/calendar-junk-event-filter.md.
2. Gmail — flagged and important messages
Use gog (NOT himalaya — himalaya is not installed by default on macOS; gog is what Homebrew provides).
gog gmail search 'is:starred' -a $USER@gmail.com --max=20 --json --results-only
gog gmail search 'is:important newer_than:1d' -a $USER@gmail.com --max=20 --json --results-only
gog gmail search 'is:unread newer_than:1d' -a $USER@gmail.com --max=30 --json --results-only
For each flagged email, include: sender, subject, one-line summary, and offer to draft a reply or pull full content.
Pitfall — gog gmail search returns a top-level array, NOT {threads: [...]}: see references/gog-cli-commands.md.
Pitfall — gog gmail thread get <id> returns {"thread":{"messages":[...]}} and bodies are nested multipart base64url: see references/gog-thread-body-walk-recipe.md.
3. Slack — action items needing {{OWNER_NAME}}
Default monitored channels (override via ~/.config/hermes/config.yaml):
#all-$USER-ai (C09GRLXF9GR) — operator direct line, top-priority unanswered posts#ai-general (C0AJQ5M0A0Y) — home channel, system reports (cmux Surface Report, etc.)#worldai (C0AH3RY3DK6) — your-project.com product / PR activity#life (C0AMM2B4319) — personal reminders (Cindil protein AM/PM, etc.)#mcp-mail (C0A0AG6EELB) — Agent Mail acks needed#worldai-alerts (C0BCVG4F560) — green-gate precheck PASS lines, BQ defect watcher
Look for:
- Open threads where {{OWNER_NAME}} asked a question and the bot hasn't answered yet
- Mentions of {{OWNER_NAME}} with no reply
- Anything marked urgent or pinned since the last sweep
- Infra-channel stop-monitoring directives ("we removed X, stop monitoring") need explicit routing — see P89 below.
Bot-locked-out and channel access: see references/asymmetric-bot-channel-access.md and P86/P87 below. Default to xoxp for reads if the bot returns not_in_channel for #ai-general / #worldai-alerts / #needs-jeff.
4. Deploys / system status
Check #deploys (or #ai-general for system reports like cmux Surface Report) for:
- Failed deploys or errors from the past 12h
- Successful deploys worth noting
PR green-state verification: gh pr view GraphQL is rate-limited on the keyring account — see P90 below and references/github-pr-state-when-rate-limited.md. When PR state is unfetchable from cron, surface under "🔴 Blocked / gaps" and cue the operator to cross-check via the GitHub web UI.
5. Life / personal reminders
Check #life (C0AMM2B4319) for:
- Reminders posted since last sweep (Cindil protein AM/PM, etc.)
- Follow-ups posted but not actioned
- Cron
ea-sweep-hourly self-narration rows — these are scheduled-cron echoes of past briefs; skip the narration but extract any new material change in the same row.
6. Compose and post briefing
Destination (per-sweep overrideable): Default is {{OWNER_NAME}}'s DM channel. If the sweep caller (cron prompt or user message) names a specific channel — e.g. "deliver to #ai-general (NOT the operator's DM)" — use that channel instead. Per SOUL.md slack-channel-routing-policy, cron-generated briefs default to #ai-general (C0AJQ5M0A0Y); user-typed requests default to the originating channel.
Format:
For a narrow Gmail + next-24h Calendar cron, use references/compact-gmail-calendar-digest.md; it defines incident ranking, cascade deduplication, rolling-window filtering, exact three-section rendering, and automatic-delivery behavior.
Archive the brief to disk at ~/.hermes/memory/briefings/YYYY-MM-DD/HHMM-ea-sweep.md so there's a searchable trail when the DM gets noisy or the bot loses DM access.
Verified pitfalls (with provenance)
P86 — Bot-locked-out / asymmetric channel access
Bot may be a member of #all-$USER-ai but locked out of #worldai / #ai-general / #worldai-alerts. Channel-read fallback chain: (1) bot token conversations.history; (2) xoxp user token; (3) cheap reply_count probe via conversations.history parent messages instead of conversations.replies when xoxp thread visibility is broken. See references/asymmetric-bot-channel-access.md.
P87 — DM dedup via bot token is reliable even when bot is locked out of monitored channels
DM is always channel-scoped to the user-bot pair — not_in_channel does NOT apply. Bot can still conversations.open(users=U09GH5BR3QU) and chat.postMessage to DM. Use xoxp fallback for the post ONLY if the bot chat.postMessage itself returns account_inactive / token_revoked. See references/bot-locked-out-dedup-probe.md.
P88 — Slack API JSON control chars break json.loads
conversations.history / conversations.replies responses contain raw \n (0x0a) in message text strings. Strip raw control bytes via re.sub(rb'[\x00-\x08\x0b\x0c\x0e-\x1f]', b'', raw) before parsing. json.loads(s, strict=False) is NOT enough. See references/slack-api-json-parse.md.
P89 — Operator "stop monitoring X" directives in infra channels (added 2026-07-17 20:08 PT sweep)
A top-level post like "We removed hermes staging so stop monitoring for it" in #openclaw-health is NOT a Q&A — it is an ops directive that needs follow-through (prune the watcher, kill the launchd plist, audit dependent scheduled crons). Don't surface it as just another Risky item; pair with a recommended next action. Sender is often workflow handle U0AEZC7RX1Q (unresolvable via users_search) rather than U09GH5BR3QU — treat as real operator intent regardless. Quote verbatim and propose an action.
P90 — gh pr view GraphQL rate-limited → REST requires repo-scoped token (added 2026-07-17 20:08 PT sweep)
When gh pr view returns GraphQL: API rate limit already exceeded for user ID 13840161, the keyring account's GraphQL budget is exhausted. REST via gh pr view --json ALSO fails (same endpoint). curl -H "Authorization: token ..." requires a repo-scoped PAT for jleechanorg/*. If GH_TOKEN_AGENTF is empty in this session's bashrc (verified 2026-07-17 20:08 PT — agentf PAT not sourced), PR state is unfetchable from cron. Surface under "🔴 Blocked / gaps" with cue "cross-check via GitHub web UI before MERGE APPROVED". See references/github-pr-state-when-rate-limited.md.
P91 — gog calendar events with --from/--to returns multi-week carry-forward events
--from/--to filter by event START, not duration. Multi-week junk events with start-times overlapping the window leak through (e.g. "Trip to Dublin | 2026-06-19 → 2026-08-23" surfaces in a --from=2026-07-17 query). Filter client-side by duration < 48h when rendering, OR drop events whose start.dateTime is more than 24h before the window start. Verified 2026-07-17 16:04 PT. See references/calendar-junk-event-filter.md.
P92 — All-day events with time-sensitive names need visual flag
gog calendar events returns date (no dateTime) for all-day events; the HH:MM formatter strips them to "all-day — Client tech at 11am". Time buried in title is invisible. When rendering all-day events whose title contains a time pattern (HH:MM, "at Xam/pm", "morning", "evening"), prefix with :warning: and surface under "Now / Today" or "Upcoming" with the extracted time. Verified 2026-07-14. See references/all-day-event-time-extraction.md.
P93 — Chase balance alerts form a 3-burst cascade
A single Chase transaction generates 3 separate email rows: "sent $X" → "balance below $Y" → "overdrawn". Lead with the highest-severity line; treat as one event. Verified 2026-07-14 08:02 PT.
P94 — Stacked-asks triage threshold (refined 2026-07-14 20:04 PT)
Ranked-triage format whenever ≥3 unanswered operator asks span ≥2 channels. Every item MUST have conversations.replies total=1 (truly unanswered). Drop from queue if mid-sweep reply landed. See references/stacked-asks-triage.md.
P95 — Downstream consumers must verify EA-brief asks against live channel history
The brief's "unanswered operator asks" list is a snapshot, not a live query. Re-run conversations.history before driving work; cross-check each cited ask; watch for conflation across channels/threads.
P96 — Briefs decay — re-verify every "blocked" claim against live PR/issue state before acting on it (added 2026-07-24 08:10 PT sweep)
A morning briefing's "🔴 Blocked / needs you" list is a point-in-time snapshot taken before cron delivery, not an authoritative state. By the time the operator reads it (or replies to the briefing's "act on this?" prompt), state may have moved: PRs that were open may have merged in the clean-replay wave (e.g. dark-factory #470 → #474), or merged at the same time as the brief was being composed (#8462 cold-replica fix landed while the brief was being drafted).
Mandatory before driving any item from the brief as "blocked":
gh pr view <N> --json state,mergedAt,headRefName for each cited PR. If mergedAt is non-null, move it from "Blocked" to "Already done" — do NOT spawn AO workers for merged PRs.conversations.replies on each cited thread with the user's "did we make X?" question. If a prior session already answered with the PR number, do NOT re-answer — surface as "answered at ts=...".- Render a delta section in the reply: 🟢 Already done (brief was stale) — list items that moved; 🟡 Open, ready for review — list items still actionable; 🔴 Real blockers — only the items that genuinely need operator attention.
Concrete trigger: any user message containing "act on this", "anything you want me to act on?", or a direct reply to a morning brief, that includes "🔴 Blocked" items. Re-verify against gh pr view BEFORE spawning AO workers.
Bug-ref: 2026-07-24 08:00 PT briefing flagged dark-factory #470 as "clean replay + /green + merge" — actually closed 90 min earlier; clean replay at #474 merged at e7882ecf. Operator wasted attention on a non-issue. See references/brief-staleness-reverify.md for the full recipe + BQ-cost cross-check.
Companion references
references/env-and-channels.md — env vars + channel ID mapping (verified quarterly)references/sweep-monitoring-channels.md — which channels to scan and what they surfacereferences/system-probes-recipes.md — load / disk / gateway / launchd probes with expected outputsreferences/gateway-health-probe-recipe.md — verify the gateway is actually up (127.0.0.1:8643/health is a known-bogus false-positive)references/gog-cli-commands.md — gog subcommand surface + pitfallsreferences/gog-multipart-body-workaround.md — multipart body issues with gog gmail sendreferences/slack-api-json-parse.md — control-char JSON-parse workaround for conversations.repliesreferences/slack-mcp-fallback-recipe.md — when MCP slack is unreachable, fall back to curlreferences/slack-delivery-dead-recipe.md — when Slack itself is dead (token revoked by Slack/Notion/GitHub secret scanner)references/bot-locked-out-dedup-probe.md — dedup probe must distinguish "no prior brief" from "bot can't read DM"references/asymmetric-bot-channel-access.md — bot is in some channels but not others; cheap reply_count probe via parent messagesreferences/all-day-event-time-extraction.md — all-day events with time-sensitive namesreferences/stacked-asks-triage.md — stacked unanswered operator asks; ranking algorithm + renderreferences/ezgha-fleet-failure-classes.md — fail_class taxonomy for #mcp-mail ezgha fleet alertsreferences/«redacted:xox…».md — bot alive but member of zero channels; use SLACK_MCP_XOXP_TOKENreferences/midday-pressure-and-slack-auth-outage.md — midday partial-sweep recipe for simultaneous load/disk/swap pressure plus Slack credential outagereferences/dropped-thread-silent-die-evidence-2026-07-15.md — diagnostic evidence for the dropped-thread-watcher silent-die patternreferences/ea-dedup-protocol.md — 30-min sliding-window dedup discipline + worked examplesreferences/dedup-decision-tree.md — visual decision tree for dedup hit vs full re-brief
Delivery: per-sweep destination override + bot-locked-out fallback
Default destination: the operator's DM channel. The user's cron prompt may explicitly override — e.g. "Deliver the resulting briefing to #ai-general (NOT the operator's DM)". Honor the override.
Bot-locked-out fallback (P95 — added 2026-07-20 sweep): When the destination channel is one the bot is NOT a member of (#ai-general C0AJQ5M0A0Y, #worldai-alerts C0BCVG4F560, etc.), mcp__slack__conversations_add_message returns {"error": "not_in_channel"}. Per SOUL.md slack-cross-workspace-fallback-xoxp, fall back to xoxp user-token via curl — do NOT give up and post nothing. Full recipe with the bash -l env-var trap in references/delivery-fallback-recipe.md.
Channel-default for cron briefs (P96): Per slack-channel-routing-policy, cron-generated/system briefs default to #ai-general UNLESS the originating request specified a different channel. A cron prompt saying "Deliver to #ai-general (NOT the operator's DM)" is the canonical explicit override — it must be honored even when bot access is blocked (P95 fallback handles that).
