Recipe: sort this morning's customer emails¶
Copy your new emails into a text file and let Hermes sort them: what is urgent, what kind of email each one is, a one-line summary, and draft replies for the urgent ones. You read the drafts, fill in what only you know, and send them yourself.
| Time needed | 10 minutes |
| You need | A Hermes agent connected to an AI model and your new emails, copied into a text file |
| Result | A ranked list with a summary of each email, and reply drafts for the urgent ones, saved in email-triage.md |
Hermes drafts, you send
In this recipe Hermes does not read or send your email: you copy the emails into a file and send the replies yourself. Never send a draft about health, allergies or money without reading it: you know what really happened, Hermes does not.
1. Put the emails in a text file¶
Copy each email with who sent it, the subject, when it arrived and the text. Upload the file in FILES → workspace (see Hermes reads a contract for you).
Our test file, customer-emails.txt, had 6 emails for a bakery. Before asking Hermes we wrote down our own labels, to compare afterwards:
| # | From | Our label |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rita Fonseca | Urgent complaint: her coeliac son is unwell after a "gluten-free" cake; she needs the ingredients for the doctor this morning |
| 2 | Hotel Mar Azul | Urgent order problem: 40 loaves missing; they need an answer by 12:00 about a 06:30 delivery tomorrow |
| 3 | Jorge Lima | Normal question: Christmas opening hours and a Bolo Rei order |
| 4 | Rocha & Filhos | Normal admin: a copy of an invoice, before 30 November |
| 5 | SEO Rank Masters | Spam: ignore |
| 6 | Marta Teixeira | Low: a thank-you, no action needed |
The first email, as an example:
EMAIL 1
From: Rita Fonseca
Subject: Gluten in the "gluten-free" cake?
Received: Mon 16 Nov 2026, 08:12
Hi, yesterday I bought the gluten-free orange cake for my son, who has coeliac disease. Today he is unwell and the label on the box says "may contain wheat". Can you tell me exactly what is in it and whether it was made in the same area as normal bread? I need this for his doctor this morning. Rita
2. Ask for the triage and the urgent drafts¶
Tell Hermes what time it is (deadlines like "by 12:00 today" depend on it), which labels to use, and what a draft must never do. In CHAT we wrote:
Open workspace/customer-emails.txt: 6 emails that came in this morning (it is Monday 16 November 2026, 09:30). Sort them from most to least urgent. For each one give: urgency (urgent, normal, low or ignore), type (complaint, order, question, invoice, spam or thanks) and a one-line summary. Then draft replies for the urgent ones only, in the language of the email, signed 'Marta, Sunrise Bakery'. Do not admit fault, promise refunds or promise a delivery we have not confirmed: where I must check something first, write [CHECK: ...]. Save everything as workspace/email-triage.md.
Hermes first loaded two skills: a built-in one for sorting emails (email-inbox-triage) and one it had written for itself in an earlier recipe (bakery-customer-answers). That second skill made it also read our FAQ file from another recipe, bakery-faq.txt, for facts such as opening hours:
Then it gave the result:
- The 6 emails from most to least urgent, with urgency, type and a one-line summary.
- Why the two urgent ones are in this order: a child's health first, then the hotel's 12:00 deadline.
- What the drafts do and do not say: no claim about the cake that is not in the FAQ, no promise of the 06:30 delivery, and
[CHECK]markers where you must fill in the facts.
The drafts are in email-triage.md in FILES → workspace. The reply to the hotel, in Portuguese like the email:
Bom dia, Sofia,
Obrigada pelo aviso. Estamos a verificar a encomenda de hoje e voltamos a contactar antes das 12h com a resposta sobre a entrega de amanhã.
- Os 40 pães de forma em falta: [CHECK: o que aconteceu com os 40 pães na encomenda de hoje (guia de entrega / preparação) e se temos 40 pães de forma disponíveis para amanhã]
- Entrega amanhã (terça) às 06:30: [CHECK: se conseguimos entregar às 06:30. O nosso horário normal de entrega é 08:00 às 11:00, por isso é preciso confirmar internamente. Só confirmar se for mesmo possível]
Cumprimentos,
Marta, Sunrise Bakery
Replace each [CHECK: ...] with the real answer before you send it. The file also lists what to do with the other emails (for example "send a copy of FT 2026/311, deadline 30 Nov").
Check that it worked¶
We compared Hermes' labels with ours:
- Urgency: 6 out of 6 the same. Rita and the hotel urgent, the invoice and the Christmas question normal, the thank-you low, the spam ignored.
- Type: 5 out of 6 the same. Hermes called the hotel's missing loaves a complaint; we had called it an order problem. Both fit, and it did not change the urgency.
- Drafts: only for the two urgent emails, each in the language of the email, signed as asked. Neither admits fault, promises a refund or confirms the 06:30 delivery.
- Facts: the facts in the drafts that we did not give in this chat (the kitchen uses wheat flour and nuts, normal deliveries are 08:00-11:00, closed on public holidays) all come from our
bakery-faq.txt. Nothing was made up.
Hermes remembers how you like it done
After the chat, Hermes added notes on how it did this job to its own skill bakery-back-office (we saw the new file references/email-triage.md in FILES, under skills). Next time it will follow the same steps, including "read bakery-faq.txt first". If you do not want that, delete the skill on the SKILLS page (see Teach Hermes a skill).
Make it yours¶
- Your own labels: "Types: booking, order, complaint, supplier, other."
- Your tone: "Informal, first names, no 'Dear'." Or save it as a skill, like in Reply to customer reviews.
- Your facts: put your opening hours, delivery rules and allergens in a file (like our FAQ) and tell Hermes "use only workspace/faq.txt for facts".
- Replies for all: "Also draft a short reply to the normal ones."
Common problems¶
Hermes promised something in a draft
Write the rule in the message, as we did: "Do not admit fault, promise refunds or promise a delivery we have not confirmed. Write [CHECK: ...] where I must check something first." Then search the draft for [CHECK before sending.
The urgency is wrong
Tell Hermes the time ("it is Monday 09:30") and what counts as urgent for you ("anything about health, or with a deadline today"). Hermes cannot know that a customer is your biggest client unless you say so.
A draft has a fact I never gave
Ask "Where does each fact in this draft come from?" In our test they all came from the FAQ file used in an earlier recipe. If a fact is old or wrong, fix that file, because Hermes may use it again.