rousseau email

Overview

rousseau email runs the email bridge: IMAP for inbound polling, SMTP for outbound sending. It polls INBOX (or another mailbox) for UNSEEN messages, routes each into the agent, and sends the reply via SMTP. Both connections use TLS. IMAP IDLE is not yet supported — set poll_interval accordingly.

Source: internal/cli/email.go. Transport: internal/transport/email/.

Synopsis

rousseau email [--imap-addr host:port] [--imap-username u] [--imap-password p] \
               [--smtp-addr host:port] [--smtp-username u] [--smtp-password p] \
               [--from addr] [--mailbox INBOX] [--poll-interval 30s]

Flags

Config keys respected

internal/config/config.go EmailConfig:

Key	Type	Default	Effect
email.imap_addr	string	empty	Required.
email.imap_username	string	empty	Required.
email.imap_password	string	empty	Required.
email.smtp_addr	string	empty	Required.
email.smtp_username	string	empty	Required.
email.smtp_password	string	empty	Required.
email.from	string	empty	Required.
email.mailbox	string	INBOX	Polled mailbox.
email.poll_interval	duration	30s	Cadence.
email.reply_header	string	empty	Prefix on outbound messages.

Allowlist syntax

Email has no --allow flag — the whole point of the From:/Reply-To: model is that anyone can send. Filtering happens at the mail-server side (postfix ACLs, Gmail filters, etc.), not in the router.

Environment variables

Variable	Effect
ROUSSEAU_EMAIL_IMAP_ADDR	Override IMAP address.
ROUSSEAU_EMAIL_IMAP_USERNAME	Override IMAP username.
ROUSSEAU_EMAIL_IMAP_PASSWORD	Override IMAP password.
ROUSSEAU_EMAIL_SMTP_ADDR	Override SMTP address.
ROUSSEAU_EMAIL_SMTP_USERNAME	Override SMTP username.
ROUSSEAU_EMAIL_SMTP_PASSWORD	Override SMTP password.
ROUSSEAU_EMAIL_FROM	Override From address.

Startup sequence

1. Validate IMAP and SMTP settings; fail if any required field is empty.
2. Default claudecli.permission_mode to bypassPermissions.
3. Parse poll_interval duration.
4. Open session store, build agent wiring.
5. email.New — instantiate the transport.
6. wiring.startCron — cron delivery via SMTP.
7. IMAP poll loop until context cancelled.

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	Clean context cancellation.
1	Missing IMAP/SMTP settings, invalid duration, TLS failure, provider/store error.
130	SIGINT.

Worked examples

# Gmail app password + implicit TLS
rousseau email \
  --imap-addr imap.gmail.com:993 \
  --imap-username bot@example.com \
  --imap-password "$IMAP_APP_PW" \
  --smtp-addr smtp.gmail.com:465 \
  --smtp-username bot@example.com \
  --smtp-password "$SMTP_APP_PW" \
  --from bot@example.com

# From config, poll every 2 minutes
cat > ~/.config/rousseau/config.yaml <<'EOF'
email:
  imap_addr: imap.example.com:993
  imap_username: bot@example.com
  imap_password: "$IMAP_APP_PW"
  smtp_addr: smtp.example.com:465
  smtp_username: bot@example.com
  smtp_password: "$SMTP_APP_PW"
  from: bot@example.com
  mailbox: INBOX
  poll_interval: 2m
EOF
rousseau email

Common failure modes

• AUTHENTICATIONFAILED — bad IMAP credentials or missing app-password (Gmail, Outlook require app-passwords).
• STARTTLS is not supported — the server offers only STARTTLS; not implemented.
• Duplicate replies — the bot is not marking messages read; verify mail is flagged SEEN after processing.
• SMTP 550 5.7.1 relay denied — SMTP host requires authenticated SMTP; verify username/password.

Related pages

• Transports: Email
• Recipes: Email triage
• Best Practices: Secret management
• Reference: Logs