Read Email

Fetches and displays emails from Gmail using OAuth credentials.

Prerequisites

• GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID and GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET environment variables must be set
• OAuth token file at ~/.claude/gmail_token.yaml (or custom path via GMAIL_TOKEN_PATH)

Usage

When the user requests to read emails, extract:

1. Sender - Email address to filter by (e.g., support@example.com)
2. Limit - Number of emails (default: 10)
3. Query - Optional Gmail search query for advanced filtering

Process

1. Parse User Request

Extract the sender email address or search query from the user's request:

• "look at recent emails from support@example.com" → --from support@example.com
• "check my last 5 emails from acme corp" → --from notifications@acme.com --limit 5
• "find emails about invoice" → --query "subject:invoice"

2. Run the Gmail Reader

source ~/.rvm/scripts/rvm && rvm use ruby-3.4.2 && ruby ~/.claude/skills/read-email/bin/gmail-reader.rb --from <sender> --limit <n>

Options:

• -f, --from SENDER - Filter by sender email address
• -q, --query QUERY - Gmail search query (overrides --from)
• -l, --limit N - Maximum emails to return (default: 10)

3. Present Results

Parse the JSON output and present emails in a readable format:

## Email from [sender]
**Subject**: [subject]
**Date**: [date]

[body content]

---

For each email:

• Show sender, subject, and date prominently
• Display full body content
• Summarise key points if the email is lengthy
• Highlight any action items or important information

4. Offer Follow-up Actions

After presenting emails, suggest relevant actions:

• "Would you like me to summarise these emails?"
• "Should I draft a reply to any of these?"
• "Want to search for related emails?"

Examples

User: "look at recent emails from support@example.com"

source ~/.rvm/scripts/rvm && rvm use ruby-3.4.2 && ruby ~/.claude/skills/read-email/bin/gmail-reader.rb --from support@example.com --limit 10

User: "check my last 3 emails from Acme Corp"

source ~/.rvm/scripts/rvm && rvm use ruby-3.4.2 && ruby ~/.claude/skills/read-email/bin/gmail-reader.rb --from notifications@acme.com --limit 3

User: "find emails about the project proposal"

source ~/.rvm/scripts/rvm && rvm use ruby-3.4.2 && ruby ~/.claude/skills/read-email/bin/gmail-reader.rb --query "subject:project proposal" --limit 10

Error Handling

• Missing environment variables: Ensure GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID and GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET are set
• Authorization required: OAuth token file missing - run the OAuth flow to generate ~/.claude/gmail_token.yaml
• No emails found: Report that no matching emails were found
• Network error: Suggest checking internet connection and retrying

Output Format

The script returns JSON:

[
  {
    "id": "message-id",
    "from": "sender@example.com",
    "to": "recipient@example.com",
    "subject": "Email subject",
    "date": "Fri, 10 Jan 2025 10:30:00 +0000",
    "body": "Full plain-text email body..."
  }
]

Notes

• Prefers plain-text email body over HTML
• Falls back to HTML with tags stripped if no plain-text available
• Uses read-only Gmail scope (cannot send or modify emails)
• First run may be slow due to gem installation (bundler/inline)
• Token path defaults to ~/.claude/gmail_token.yaml, override with GMAIL_TOKEN_PATH env var