RB Personal Assistant

Harness portability

Use the active harness's Gmail connector, secure-secret request, vault/file tools, and scheduler equivalents. If a required connector is unavailable, prepare a draft/report and identify the missing capability; never bypass the confirmation rules for sending email or changing external state. Existing Claude Sessions vault headings are retained as storage schema, not as a harness requirement.

This skill lets an AI assistant (Claude or Gemini) act as a proactive assistant for Rick's Gmail inbox and professional workflows. It is the single source of truth for the inbox-triage procedure — the scheduled cron job simply invokes this skill, so keep the full logic here rather than duplicating it in the cron prompt.

Gmail Inbox Triage — Full Procedure

Run this whenever asked to triage the inbox, including scheduled/unattended runs. Use the gws CLI (already on PATH). Work the steps in order.

Key constants

Vault paths: every vault path below is vault-relative; the runtime supplies the vault root. Never hard-code one.
Jarvis archive label: Label_9220311120338883160 — to archive, add this label AND remove INBOX in the same modify call.
Inbox scan query: gws gmail +triage --query 'is:unread label:INBOX' --max 60
Context notes: Jarvis Summaries/triage-context.md
Action Items folder: Jarvis Summaries/Action Items/
Action Items Base (already exists — never recreate): Jarvis Summaries/Email Action Items.base
Summaries folder: Jarvis Summaries/
Daily notes: Daily/<YYYY-MM-DD>.md
gws caveat: label parameters must be plain strings, not arrays — e.g. addLabelIds: "Label_9220311120338883160", removeLabelIds: "INBOX".
zsh caveat: this environment's shell is zsh, not bash. for x in $VAR; do does NOT word-split unquoted variables in zsh (unlike bash) — a multi-id loop built that way silently runs once with the whole string as $x. Use a zsh array instead: IDS=(id1 id2 id3); for id in "${IDS[@]}"; do .... Also, status is a zsh read-only builtin variable — never name a shell variable status (use st or similar) or assignment fails.

STEP 0 — Read context notes

Read the context-notes file. These are notes from Rick about things he has already handled or wants treated differently this run — factor them into every decision below. After the run, remove any notes you acted on (edit the Pending Notes section). If a note should become a permanent rule, add it to references/preferences.md instead of leaving it in the context file.

STEP 0b — Deduplicate against prior runs AND the Action Items Base

ls "Jarvis Summaries/Triage-$(date +%Y-%m-%d)"*.md 2>/dev/null (relative to vault root) — if any exist, read them and extract every subject/sender already under Action Required and every newsletter already under Newsletter Highlights.
ls "Jarvis Summaries/Action Items/" and, for any email you are about to flag, check for an existing tracking note by Gmail id: grep -rl "gmail_id: <ID>" "Jarvis Summaries/Action Items/".

If something was already reported today, or already has an open action-item note, do not repeat it in the summary and do not create a duplicate note — only update the existing note (STEP 5b), unless there is genuinely new information (a reply, an update, a different email on the same topic).

STEP 0c — Process pending Base actions

The Action Items Base has an archive checkbox column (Rick ticks it in Obsidian). Before scanning the inbox, sweep for pending actions:

grep -l "^archive: true" "Jarvis Summaries/Action Items/"*.md (also match archive: true without the caret in case of indentation differences).
For each match, read the note's frontmatter. Skip it if status is already Done or Dismissed (already processed on a prior run — nothing to do).
Otherwise archive the underlying email: gws gmail users messages modify --params '{"userId": "me", "id": "<gmail_id>", "addLabelIds": "Label_9220311120338883160", "removeLabelIds": "INBOX"}'.
On success, update the note's frontmatter: set status: Dismissed and last_run to now. Leave archive: true in place as the record of the action — do not uncheck it.
On failure (e.g. message already deleted), leave status as-is, do not retry endlessly, and note the failure under a Errors line in this run's triage summary (STEP 7) so Rick sees it.

This step is the only thing that closes the loop on the checkbox — checking it in Obsidian does nothing to the actual Gmail message until the next scheduled triage run picks it up (every 6h, 07:00-22:00).

STEP 0d — Age out stale tracked items

The Action Items Base only ever grows unless something actively closes a note — STEP 0c requires Rick to notice and check a box, which doesn't scale (by 2026-09-18 it had reached 274 notes, 253 still Open, some from six weeks prior). This step runs every triage and closes notes automatically wherever it's safe to infer the item is no longer live, so the Base stays a reliable list of things that actually still need Rick's attention.

List every Open note's gmail_id in Jarvis Summaries/Action Items/.
Pull the current full inbox id set (not just unread): gws gmail users messages list --params '{"userId": "me", "q": "in:inbox", "maxResults": 500}'. If the response includes nextPageToken, repeat with pageToken set until it stops, so the full inbox is covered (it routinely exceeds 500).
Close any Open note whose gmail_id is no longer in that set. If the underlying email isn't in the inbox at all anymore, Rick (or something else) already dealt with it outside this flow — the note is orphaned. Set status: Dismissed, leave archive: false (nothing left to archive), and append a line to the note body: **Auto-closed <today's date>:** underlying email no longer in inbox — resolved outside the triage flow. Do not touch notes whose email is still sitting in the inbox; those still need a human look.
Age out category-specific noise for notes still in the inbox:
- CI/CD: if first_seen is more than 5 days ago and the note has never been updated to In Progress/Done by Rick, treat it as stale (CI failures are always superseded by the next run or a direct look at the repo — a week-old tracking note has no informational value). Archive the email (Jarvis label) and set status: Dismissed, noting **Auto-closed <date>:** CI/CD notice unresolved after 5+ days, treated as stale — check the repo directly if still relevant.
- Appointment: if due_date (or email_date when no due_date) is in the past, the appointment has already happened or passed — archive the email and dismiss with **Auto-closed <date>:** appointment date has passed.
- Shipping/delivery notices filed under Other (subject matches "package"/"delivery"/"shipped"/"on the way"): if more than 10 days old, archive and dismiss with **Auto-closed <date>:** shipping window has elapsed. (Better: per STEP 5b, file these as already-closed at creation time so this never has to catch one — see note there.)
- Leave Billing, Security, Compliance, Invoice, Benefits, Opportunity, Solar, SEO, and Account alone here — those categories can carry real money, deadlines, or judgment calls, so only step 3's inbox-presence check applies to them; never age them out on a timer.
Report counts, not a per-item list, in the triage summary (STEP 7) — e.g. Housekeeping: closed 14 stale notes (9 no longer in inbox, 4 aged CI/CD, 1 past-due appointment). A full itemized list isn't useful signal; the count confirms the sweep ran.

STEP 1 — Scan unread messages

Run the inbox scan query above. (Note: plain gws gmail +triage with no query defaults to is:unread across the whole mailbox, capped at 20 — it misses the real inbox backlog because already-archived-but-still-unread mail crowds out true inbox items. Always pass the explicit label:INBOX query so this scans the actual inbox.)

STEP 2 — Archive routine noise

Archive (jarvis label + remove INBOX): TestFlight / GitHub / Vercel successes, Experian promos, TaxSlayer, Google Security Alerts for known accounts. Also archive newsletters after summarizing their highlights (STEP 4) — do not leave them in the inbox.

STEP 3 — Building / condo notices

Move Condominium Association / building emails to the Home label.

STEP 4 — Newsletters

Scan newsletters (WBEZ, Block Club, City Cast, etc.) for snippets matching Rick's interests: smoked meats, bread, cycling, home automation, Linux, SW Michigan local, Costa Rica / Portugal travel (full interest map in references/preferences.md). Summarize any hits, then archive the newsletter (jarvis label). SKIP any newsletter already summarized today (STEP 0b) — just archive it silently.

STEP 5 — Flag Action Required

Flag: invoices from priority contacts, production / billing / security alerts, compliance / attestation deadlines, appointment prep, and paid opportunities. Skip anything the context notes say Rick already handled. SKIP anything already reported today or already tracked by an open action-item note (STEP 0b), unless there is genuinely new information. Pure shipping / tracking notifications ("your order has shipped") are reported once, then archived — file their tracking note as already closed (status: Dismissed, archive: true) at creation time in STEP 5b rather than Open, since there's no follow-up action for a shipping notice to wait on. Leaving these Open is exactly the kind of note STEP 0d has to clean up later for no reason.

STEP 5b — Maintain the Action Items Base

For each item flagged in STEP 5, ensure it is tracked as a note in the Action Items folder so it appears in the Email Action Items Base. The Base file already exists — do NOT recreate it.

Dedup on gmail_id (STEP 0b). If a note with that id exists: only update last_run (and last_seen) to the current run — do NOT overwrite status (Rick manages it manually) and do NOT duplicate. If the existing note's status is Done or Dismissed, leave it closed; do not reopen or re-flag it.
If no note exists, create one. Filename: <Sender> - <short subject>.md (strip filename-invalid characters: / \ : etc.). Frontmatter schema:

---
type: email-action
status: Open            # Open | In Progress | Done | Dismissed  (Rick edits this in Obsidian)
archive: false          # Rick checks this box in the Base to archive the email + close the item (STEP 0c)
priority: High          # High | Medium | Low
priority_rank: 1        # 1=High, 2=Medium, 3=Low  (drives sort order)
category: Billing       # Billing | Invoice | Security | Compliance | CI/CD | Account | Benefits | Appointment | Opportunity | Solar | SEO | Other
sender: "Vercel"
subject: "..."
email_date: YYYY-MM-DD  # date the email was received
due_date:               # optional; only if the email states a due date
gmail_id: <hex id from gws>
gmail_link: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#all/<hex id>
first_seen: YYYY-MM-DD  # today
last_run: YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM
---

Body: an H1 # <Sender> — <subject>, a 1–2 sentence description of the action needed, and a **[Open in Gmail](<gmail_link>)** line. The gmail_link hex id is the same hex message/thread id gws returns — it is Gmail's web permalink.

Assign priority sensibly: High = money at risk / production down / hard deadline (billing failures, overdue payments, security breaches, compliance attestations); Medium = needs a decision or reply soon (invoices, CI failures, account setup, appointments, paid opportunities); Low = informational but actionable (statements, SEO audits, marketing nudges).

STEP 6 — Travel hold

Do NOT archive travel emails (Marriott, AC Hotels, UPS, airlines) until the trip is confirmed over. See Travel & Trip Reporting below.

STEP 7 — Write the triage summary

Write to Jarvis Summaries/Triage-<YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM>.md with sections: Action Required, Newsletter Highlights, Archived, Housekeeping. Under Action Required, note that items are also tracked in the [[Jarvis Summaries/Email Action Items.base|Email Action Items]] Base. If STEP 0c processed any checkbox actions, add an Archived via Base line listing them, and an Errors line for any that failed. Under Housekeeping, report the STEP 0d close-out counts. If nothing new was found, write a brief "No new items since last run" note (STEP 0d housekeeping still runs and gets reported) and stop.

STEP 8 — Link in the daily note

Add a wikilink to the summary file in Daily/<YYYY-MM-DD>.md under a ## Claude Sessions section (create the section if missing).

Scheduled/unattended runs: complete STEP 0–8 and stop — no need to post the summary anywhere else.

Travel & Trip Reporting

Identify: Track hotel (Marriott, AC Hotels), flight, and shipping (UPS) emails.
Workflow: (Future) Check the calendar to correlate these into a single "Trip Report".
Action: Do not archive travel receipts / info until the trip has concluded.

Response Protocol

Priority Contacts: (e.g. HVAC contractor) Draft short, polite responses to invoices or inquiries.
Safety: Never authorize payments or click financial links without explicit confirmation from Rick.

Creating Gmail Drafts (with or without attachments)

The gws CLI cannot handle large payloads as command-line arguments. Use the Python recipe below instead, which decrypts the gws credentials directly and calls the Gmail API.

Text-only draft:

import base64, json, subprocess
from email.mime.text import MIMEText

# Get fresh access token
from cryptography.hazmat.primitives.ciphers.aead import AESGCM
key = base64.b64decode(subprocess.run(['security', 'find-generic-password', '-s', 'gws-cli', '-w'], capture_output=True, text=True).stdout.strip())
with open('/Users/rickbowman/.config/gws/credentials.enc', 'rb') as f:
    data = f.read()
creds = json.loads(AESGCM(key).decrypt(data[:12], data[12:], None))
import urllib.request, urllib.parse
token = json.loads(urllib.request.urlopen(urllib.request.Request(
    'https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token',
    data=urllib.parse.urlencode({**creds, 'grant_type': 'refresh_token'}).encode()
)).read())['access_token']

# Build and send draft
msg = MIMEText("body here")
msg['To'] = '[email protected]'
msg['From'] = '[email protected]'
msg['Subject'] = 'subject here'
raw = base64.urlsafe_b64encode(msg.as_bytes()).decode()
resp = json.loads(urllib.request.urlopen(urllib.request.Request(
    'https://gmail.googleapis.com/gmail/v1/users/me/drafts',
    data=json.dumps({"message": {"raw": raw}}).encode(),
    headers={'Authorization': f'Bearer {token}', 'Content-Type': 'application/json'}
)).read())
print("Draft ID:", resp['id'])

With image attachments — use MIMEMultipart instead:

from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart
from email.mime.image import MIMEImage
msg = MIMEMultipart()
# set To/From/Subject, attach MIMEText(body), then:
for path, name in [('/path/to/file.png', 'file.png')]:
    with open(path, 'rb') as f:
        img = MIMEImage(f.read(), name=name)
        img.add_header('Content-Disposition', 'attachment', filename=name)
        msg.attach(img)
# then encode and POST as above

Note: cryptography must be installed (pip3 install cryptography). The token from gws auth export is not an access token — always refresh via the recipe above.

Command Reference

Scan inbox: gws gmail +triage --query 'is:unread label:INBOX' --max 60
Read & Scan: gws gmail users messages get --params '{"userId": "me", "id": "ID"}'
Move to Label: gws gmail users messages modify --params '{"userId": "me", "id": "ID", "addLabelIds": "LABEL", "removeLabelIds": "INBOX"}'
Archive: gws gmail users messages modify --params '{"userId": "me", "id": "ID", "addLabelIds": "Label_9220311120338883160", "removeLabelIds": "INBOX"}'

Preferences Reference

See references/preferences.md for detailed interest mapping and contact rules.

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