📧 Email Triage with Auto-Draft Replies
Sort inbound email into action/reference/ignore and pre-draft replies for common patterns. You review and send with one tap.
The problem
Inbox zero is a fantasy because 70% of your email is near-identical: scheduling, status updates, 'can you send X', intro requests. You write the same 5 replies every week. That's cognitive tax for no output — the actual thinking per email is under 30 seconds but the transition cost adds up to an hour a day.
The outcome
Every incoming email gets a category (urgent / waiting-on-you / FYI / ignore) and — for the ones that need a reply — a draft that matches your voice. You open the draft, skim, and hit send. Email that used to take 60 minutes takes 15.
Why Hermes
Hermes is designed for long-running, always-on agents. Triage is the canonical memory-enabled use case — the more emails it processes, the better it learns your reply patterns. Background processing doesn't require you to actively invoke it.
Alternatives worth considering
- OpenClaw — Use cron-based triage if you'd rather run it in batches (e.g., 3× daily) than continuously
- Claude Cowork — If you prefer to paste email text into a Claude Project and get draft replies on-demand — less setup, less automation
Setup steps
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Step 1: Connect your email provider
Hermes supports Gmail, Outlook, and IMAP. Use OAuth, not password auth. Grant read + modify-label scope (not delete — never give an agent delete permission on email).
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Step 2: Seed Hermes memory with past replies
Export your last 100 sent emails. Feed them to Hermes with the instruction 'learn how I write — tone, sign-off, length.' This is the biggest lever on draft quality.
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Step 3: Define triage rules in plain English
Write a policy like: 'Urgent = client questions, payment issues, or anything from [boss]. FYI = newsletters, receipts. Draft replies for: meeting requests, intro requests, status pings.'
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Step 4: Add the 'never auto-send' guardrail
Hermes drafts but never sends. Every reply waits in your drafts folder for you to review and send. Non-negotiable.
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Step 5: Review after 1 week and tune
Check the draft-acceptance rate. If you're rewriting more than 30% of drafts, feed Hermes the corrected version as a memory update.
Example prompt
Triage this email. Categorize (urgent/waiting/FYI/ignore). If it needs a reply, draft one matching my past tone — keep it under 100 words, use my sign-off, and never commit to a meeting time without checking my calendar first.Pitfalls to avoid
- Auto-sending replies. Never. An agent that sends on your behalf will eventually send something wrong to someone important. Draft-only is the rule.
- Training on personal emails only. If you also do work email, train separately or the tones will bleed (casual replies to formal threads).
- Skipping the privacy review. Your email contains everything — passwords, financial data, private conversations. Read the provider's privacy terms for how memory is stored and whether it's encrypted at rest.
Cost breakdown (monthly)
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Hermes subscription (varies by tier) | $10–20 |
| Model API (if BYO key) | $0–10 |
Total: $10–25/month. Costs assume typical usage; heavy use can run higher.
Related guides
← Back to all use cases · Compare platforms at the decision guide.