Email Triage Plugin for Claude
A plugin template that turns Claude into your personal email triage assistant — one who knows which emails need a reply, which just need a glance, and which 47 are noise you can archive without opening.
What This Is
This is a plugin for Claude (works with both Cowork and Claude Code). Once configured, you can say "check my email" and Claude will:
- Scan your inbox using Gmail MCP tools (time-windowed, not just unread)
- Classify every email into three tiers: Reply Needed, Review, and Noise
- Draft replies for the urgent ones, matching your writing style
- Offer to archive the noise — with explicit confirmation, never automatically
The triage runs in about 30 seconds for a typical day's inbox. You get a clean summary you can act on instead of scrolling through 200 subject lines.
Why This Approach
Most inbox management tools try to be clever with rules and auto-sorting. This takes a different approach: Claude actually reads your email (subjects, senders, snippets) and makes judgment calls the way a good executive assistant would.
The key insight is alias-aware routing. If you use email aliases — shopping@yourdomain.com goes to your inbox but gets a "Shopping" label, travel@yourdomain.com gets a "Travel" label — you can map each alias to a default priority tier. A well-configured alias map means 80% of emails get classified instantly, and Claude only needs to read the remaining 20% more carefully.
This pairs especially well with the Family Assistant Skill, which provides the contact context (family members, schools, service providers) that makes triage smarter. But it works standalone too.
Getting Started
1. Install the plugin
For Cowork users:
Drop the plugin folder into whichever folder you select when starting a Cowork session.
For Claude Code users:
Copy it into your project or home directory:
cp -r email-triage-plugin ~/.claude/plugins/email-triage-plugin
2. Connect Gmail
This plugin requires Gmail MCP tools to be available. In Cowork, enable the Gmail connector. In Claude Code, configure the Gmail MCP server.
3. Customize the triage rules
Open skills/email-triage/SKILL.md and customize:
| Section | What to change |
|---|
| Step 0 — Load Context | Point to your reference files (family members, aliases, etc.) |
| Step 1 — Scan Inbox | Add label exclusions for emails handled elsewhere (e.g., -label:AI) |
| Step 2 — Alias routing | Map your aliases to default tiers |
| Step 2 — Urgency signals | Add your work domain, kids' schools, key contacts |
| Step 4 — Voice guidelines | Describe how you write emails so Claude can match your style |
The most impactful customization is the alias routing table in Step 2. If you use 5+ aliases, start there.
4. Start using it
/email → Full inbox triage
/email work → Only work emails
/email personal → Exclude work emails
/summary → Alias for /email
Or just say:
- "Check my email"
- "What's in my inbox?"
- "Catch me up on email from this week"
- "Draft a reply to #3"
- "Archive the noise"
File Structure
email-triage-plugin/
├── .claude-plugin/
│ └── plugin.json # Plugin metadata
├── commands/
│ ├── email.md # /email slash command
│ └── summary.md # /summary alias
├── skills/
│ └── email-triage/
│ └── SKILL.md # Triage logic, tier definitions, customization points
├── LICENSE
└── README.md
How the Three Tiers Work
Tier 1 — Reply Needed. Someone is waiting on you. Family, work, financial alerts, school emails, anything time-sensitive. These are numbered so you can say "draft a reply to #2" and Claude will pull up the full thread, draft something in your voice, and wait for your OK before sending.
Tier 2 — Review. Needs your eyes but not a reply. Shipping updates, calendar invites, shared docs, travel confirmations. Presented as a quick-scan list.
Tier 3 — Noise. Marketing, social notifications, promotional bulk. Summarized as category counts ("12 marketing, 8 social, 3 automated"). Claude offers to archive them in one shot.
Tips
Use email aliases. This is the single biggest upgrade. If your domain supports catch-all or alias routing, create aliases for categories (shopping@, travel@, newsletters@) and add them to the alias routing table. The triage becomes dramatically more accurate.
Pair with the Family Assistant. If Claude knows your family members, their schools, your doctors, and your service providers, it can classify emails from those senders instantly without needing to parse content.
