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email-imap-fetch

Included with Lifetime
$97 forever

Listen for one or more IMAP inboxes with the IDLE command, fetch unread email metadata plus text previews, and forward each message to OpenClaw webhooks. Use when tasks need near-real-time mailbox monitoring, multi-account inbox ingestion via environment variables, and automatic trigger delivery into OpenClaw automation.

Productivityscriptsassets

What this skill does


# Email IMAP Fetch

## Core Goal
- Wait for new mail with IMAP IDLE.
- Fetch unread messages after each wake-up.
- Support multiple mailbox accounts configured with env.
- Control IDLE support strictly with env mode (`idle` or `poll`) without runtime probing.
- Forward each fetched email to OpenClaw webhooks.
- Emit machine-readable JSON lines for downstream steps.
- Keep this skill strictly in stage-1 routing mode: send snippet + structured refs only, never send full raw message body, and never send attachment binary/content.

## Workflow
1. Configure account env variables and OpenClaw webhook env variables (see `references/env.md` and `assets/config.example.env`).
2. Validate configuration:

```bash
python3 scripts/imap_idle_fetch.py check-config
```

3. Run one IDLE cycle per account (smoke test):

```bash
python3 scripts/imap_idle_fetch.py listen --cycles 1 --idle-seconds 120 --max-messages 10
```

4. Run continuously (default resident mode):

```bash
python3 scripts/imap_idle_fetch.py listen
```

## Runtime Model
- Skill files are installed locally, but the listener is not auto-started.
- In `idle` mode, IMAP IDLE receives push events only while listener process and IMAP connection are alive.
- In `poll` mode, listener sleeps for poll interval and then fetches unread messages.
- If the process exits, push events are missed; next run can still fetch existing unread emails with `UNSEEN`.
- Default runtime is resident mode (`IMAP_CYCLES=0` by default).
- Default IDLE mode is `poll` (safe for servers without IDLE support).
- In production, always-on deployment must run under `systemd`, `launchd`, `supervisor`, or an equivalent daemon manager.
- Do not run the listener as a foreground process bound to an interactive exec session; once that session exits, the listener will stop.

## Output Contract
- Output format is JSONL (one JSON object per line).
- `type=status` for lifecycle events.
- `type=message` for fetched emails with:
  - `account`, `mailbox`, `seq`, `uid`
  - `subject`, `from`, `to`, `date`
  - `message_id_raw`, `message_id_norm` (and compatibility field `message_id`)
  - `snippet` (plain-text preview only)
  - `attachment_count`, `attachment_manifest` (summary only, no attachment content)
  - `mail_ref` machine-readable object (`account`, `mailbox`, `uid`, `message_id_raw`, `message_id_norm`, `date`)
- Webhook message includes two fixed machine-readable blocks for deterministic dispatch extraction:
  - `<<<MAIL_REF_JSON>>> ... <<<END_MAIL_REF_JSON>>>`
  - `<<<ATTACHMENT_MANIFEST_JSON>>> ... <<<END_ATTACHMENT_MANIFEST_JSON>>>`
- `wait_mode` is `idle` or `poll` in cycle status output.
- `wait_events` records the active wait strategy details.
- `event=webhook_delivered` status events when OpenClaw webhook POST succeeds.
- `type=error` for account-level failures.
- `event=webhook_failed` error events when OpenClaw webhook POST fails.

## Parameters
- `--cycles`: IDLE cycles per account (`0` means forever).
- `--idle-seconds`: max wait time for each IDLE call.
- `--poll-seconds`: interval used when polling mode is active.
- `--idle-mode`: `idle` or `poll`.
- `--max-messages`: max unread emails fetched each cycle.
- `--mark-seen` / `--no-mark-seen`: control unread state updates.
- `--snippet-chars`: preview length limit.
- `--connect-timeout`: connection timeout seconds.
- `--retry-seconds`: retry delay after failure.

Environment defaults:
- `IMAP_CYCLES`
- `IMAP_IDLE_MODE`
- `IMAP_IDLE_SECONDS`
- `IMAP_POLL_SECONDS`
- `IMAP_MAX_MESSAGES`
- `IMAP_MARK_SEEN`
- `IMAP_SNIPPET_CHARS`
- `IMAP_CONNECT_TIMEOUT`
- `IMAP_RETRY_SECONDS`

OpenClaw webhooks forwarding:
- `OPENCLAW_WEBHOOKS_ENABLED`
- `OPENCLAW_WEBHOOKS_TOKEN`
- `OPENCLAW_WEBHOOKS_BASE_URL`
- `OPENCLAW_WEBHOOKS_MODE` (`agent` or `wake`)
- `OPENCLAW_WEBHOOKS_ENDPOINT` (optional endpoint override)
- `OPENCLAW_WEBHOOKS_PATH`
- `OPENCLAW_WEBHOOKS_WAKE_MODE`
- `OPENCLAW_WEBHOOKS_DELIVER`
- `OPENCLAW_WEBHOOKS_TIMEOUT`
- `OPENCLAW_WEBHOOKS_NAME`
- `OPENCLAW_WEBHOOKS_AGENT_ID`
- `OPENCLAW_WEBHOOKS_CHANNEL`
- `OPENCLAW_WEBHOOKS_TO`
- `OPENCLAW_WEBHOOKS_MODEL`
- `OPENCLAW_WEBHOOKS_THINKING`
- `OPENCLAW_WEBHOOKS_AGENT_TIMEOUT_SECONDS`
- `OPENCLAW_WEBHOOKS_SESSION_KEY_PREFIX`

## Error Handling
- Invalid env configuration exits with code `2`.
- In `idle` mode, unsupported IDLE returns explicit error and suggests `IMAP_IDLE_MODE=poll`.
- Runtime failures are emitted as `type=error`.
- Command exits non-zero when account processing errors occur.

## References
- `references/env.md`

## Assets
- `assets/config.example.env`

## Scripts
- `scripts/imap_idle_fetch.py`
Files: 5
Size: 51.9 KB
Complexity: 71/100
Category: Productivity

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