An agent that turns yesterday's inbox into an 8 a.m. debrief

sweetmelon team · Management

Most mornings start with a full inbox and one question: what needs me today, and what's quietly slipping? Build a small AI agent to answer that before you open your inbox. Every morning at 8 it reads yesterday's email and sends back a short debrief, grouped by project: what needs a decision, what moved, what's gone quiet, and what someone promised by a date. The part that makes it work isn't the prompt. It's a simple sheet the agent reads first: each project, the words that show up in its emails, the owner, and how often you'd expect to hear from them. Without it, the agent can't tell which thread belongs to what. Have it write each project's status back to that sheet, so "nothing from Legal in 12 days" shows up on day 12 instead of never. For anything that's gone quiet, let it draft a check-in, then read it and send it yourself. "Anything I can unblock?" lands very differently from "Status?" Worth knowing: quiet in email doesn't mean stalled. The work is often happening in chat or meetings, so ask before you chase.