{"version":"1.1.0","schema":"https://oneagentaday.com/api/schema.json","agent":{"title":"Inbox Triage Desk","slug":"inbox-triage-desk","date":"2026-09-08","issue":4,"category":"productivity","categoryLabel":"Productivity","tags":["email","triage","productivity"],"difficulty":"easy","runtimes":["ChatGPT","Claude","Gemini"],"excerpt":"Paste a morning of subjects and first lines. Get four piles: reply today, delegate, wait, and archive, plus the sentence to send.","problem":"The inbox is a pile of subjects you reread every morning, and the ones that need a sentence stay mixed with the ones that need nothing.","videoUrl":null,"url":"https://oneagentaday.com/agents/inbox-triage-desk","apiUrl":"https://oneagentaday.com/api/agents/inbox-triage-desk.json","promptUrl":"https://oneagentaday.com/agents/inbox-triage-desk/prompt.txt","configUrl":"https://oneagentaday.com/agents/inbox-triage-desk/config.json","configFilename":"inbox-triage.defaults.json","license":"CC-BY-4.0","howItWorks":"Triage is a sort, not a second inbox. You paste subjects and first lines, plus how many replies today can actually hold. The desk puts each message in one pile: reply today, delegate, wait, or archive. Reply-today items get the sentence to send, not a essay.\n\nIt does not invent a deadline that was not in the first line, and it does not volunteer you for work the message did not ask. Newsletters with no question go to archive. A message that needs a fact you do not have goes to wait, with the fact named.\n\nYou still send the mail. If a drafted sentence sounds like someone else, rewrite it before it leaves.","steps":[{"name":"Copy subjects and first lines","text":"From your inbox, copy the sender, the subject, and the first line. Do not paste full threads, attachments, or anyone's secrets. Five to twenty messages is a morning."},{"name":"Say what today can hold","text":"Add one line: how many replies you will actually send today. The desk is not allowed to schedule more than that into Reply today."},{"name":"Paste the prompt, then the list","text":"Paste the prompt first. The optional config lists the four piles if you want the same buckets in another tool."},{"name":"Send only the sentences you still mean","text":"Copy a drafted sentence into your mail client and send it yourself. Archive means you can archive it. The agent does not connect to the inbox."}],"demo":[{"second":0,"label":"Five messages","detail":"A contract redline, a newsletter, a date question, an unpaid invoice, and a lunch with no date."},{"second":8,"label":"Reply today","detail":"Two slots: yes on section 4, and the invoice is the one that is already late. The date question needs one sentence."},{"second":16,"label":"The other piles","detail":"Newsletter goes to archive. Lunch waits until it has a date. The date question is a reply, not a meeting."},{"second":24,"label":"The sentence","detail":"To Alex: 'Section 4 is yes. Sending before noon.' Nothing else gets a paragraph."}],"sampleInput":"1. Alex Chen — \"Contract redline due Thursday\" — first line: legal needs your yes on section 4 before noon tomorrow.\n2. Newsletter — \"This week in Kubernetes\" — unsubscribe link in the footer.\n3. Sam — \"Quick question\" — asks which of two dates works for a customer call. No other detail.\n4. Billing — \"Invoice 1844 is unpaid\" — $420, due last Friday, account is yours.\n5. Jordan — \"Lunch?\" — no date, no topic.","prompt":"You are the Inbox Triage Desk. You sort a pasted morning of email into four piles. You draft the one sentence that unblocks a reply. You do not connect to an inbox.\n\nINPUTS\n- Messages: sender, subject, first line. Optional date.\n- Capacity: how many replies they will send today. If missing, use 3 and say you assumed it.\n\nRULES\n- Every message lands in exactly one pile: Reply today, Delegate, Wait, Archive.\n- Reply today cannot exceed capacity. If more messages are urgent, say which ones slipped to Wait and why.\n- Do not invent deadlines, amounts, or owners that are not in the paste.\n- A newsletter or FYI with no question is Archive.\n- Delegate only when the paste names a person who should own it. Otherwise use Wait and name the missing owner.\n- The drafted sentence is one or two lines, in a plain voice. No \"hope this finds you well.\"\n- Never include a full account number even if they pasted one. Tell them to delete it.\n\nOUTPUT\n## Reply today\nFor each: who, the sentence to send.\n\n## Delegate\nWho should take it, and the sentence to forward. Or \"None.\"\n\n## Wait\nWhat fact is missing.\n\n## Archive\nSubjects only.\n\n## Capacity\nThe number you used.","config":"{\n  \"version\": 1,\n  \"piles\": [\n    \"reply-today\",\n    \"delegate\",\n    \"wait\",\n    \"archive\"\n  ],\n  \"defaultReplyCapacity\": 3,\n  \"stripAccountNumbers\": true\n}\n"}}