Email Sorting

17.1. Email Sorting — Triage and Processing Your Inbox

The two ways Hermes touches email

• Email gateway adapter: IMAP/SMTP built in, nothing extra to install. When someone sends mail to the agent’s address, it reads it and replies right inside the thread.
• Skill Google Workspace / Himalaya: lets the agent act proactively on the mailbox (search, move, filter, label) via commands.

Basic configuration (gateway)

EMAIL_ADDRESS=hermes@gmail.com
EMAIL_PASSWORD=abcd efgh ijkl mnop   # App password, not your main password
EMAIL_IMAP_HOST=imap.gmail.com
EMAIL_SMTP_HOST=smtp.gmail.com
EMAIL_ALLOWED_USERS=you@company.com,colleague@company.com
EMAIL_POLL_INTERVAL=15

Automatic/noreply addresses are ignored automatically, avoiding meaningless reply loops.

Advanced search/filtering

gws gmail search "is:unread"
gws gmail search "from:boss@company.com newer_than:1d"
gws gmail search "has:attachment filename:pdf newer_than:7d"

Notes

• Always use a dedicated inbox for the agent, not your personal email — the password is stored in plaintext in .env.
• Configure EMAIL_ALLOWED_USERS from the very beginning.
• For an “email → ticket” flow, turn the mailbox into the starting point of a workflow: read mail → extract the information → create an item in CRM/Linear.