check-email

name	check-email
description	Filter email noise, surface human emails needing response, flag wiki gaps.

/check-email

Purpose

Triage the email inbox. Filter newsletters, calendar invites, bot mail. Surface what actually needs the user's attention.

Requires an Email MCP integration (e.g., Gmail).

When to use

• As a sub-skill called by /morning-brief.
• Manually for an inbox sweep.

Configuration (from config.yaml)

• email — the user's email address.
• noise_senders — list of senders / domains to silently skip.

Arguments

• unread (default) — unread emails.
• today — emails received today (read or unread).
• since:YYYY-MM-DD — emails since a date.

Steps

1. Read inbox via the Email MCP. Use the most efficient query for the argument:

   • unread → is:unread in:inbox.
   • today → newer_than:1d in:inbox.
   • since:YYYY-MM-DD → after:YYYY/MM/DD in:inbox.

2. Filter noise. For each thread:

   • Match From: against noise_senders. If match, skip and increment noise count.
   • Common noise senders to add over time: GitHub notifications, calendar invites from booking tools, marketing newsletters, monitoring alerts (unless escalating), expense receipts.

3. Classify remaining (human) messages:

   • Match against stakeholders. Check if sender is in brain/people/stakeholders/. If yes, mark stakeholder + wikilink.
   • Needs response — direct question, explicit request for action, awaiting reply.
   • Wiki gap — content suggesting brain knowledge is missing.
   • Actionable notification — doc shared for review, approval requested, deadline communicated.
   • FYI — informational, no action required.

4. Compose the report using ../lib/report-template.md:

   ### Email
   
   **Needs response** (N)
   - [[stakeholder-name]] — Q3 capacity check, needs answer by Thursday.
   - [Sam@vendor] — proposal feedback request.
   
   **Wiki gaps** (N)
   - New tool mentioned by [[alex-park]] — "Acme Vault" — no brain page yet.
   
   **Actionable**
   - [Legal] DPA pending review (link).
   
   **Filtered** 14 noise items (newsletters, calendar invites, bots).
   

Output shape

10–20 lines typical.

Edge cases

• Email MCP not connected. Skip silently.
• A stakeholder isn't in brain/people/stakeholders/. Flag as wiki gap — they should be added.
• Promotional email pretending to be personal. If a "Hi {USER}!" template makes it through filtering, you can add the sender's domain to noise_senders. Suggest the addition in the report.
• Multi-recipient threads. Look at the "From:" of the most recent message and the user's role in the thread (CC, To).

Side effects

• None. Read-only.
• Does NOT send any messages. (Sending is /eod-signoff or explicit "send" requests.)