Real-time Gmail triage with urgent Slack alerts
Geni reads every new Gmail message, classifies it by priority and intent, applies a label, and pings Slack only when something is genuinely urgent.
Integrations
Gmail
Slack
Type
Categories
- Personal Productivity
- Operations
Build me an agent workflow that triages my Gmail inbox in real time and pings me on Slack only when something is genuinely urgent.
Trigger: poll Gmail for new emails using the new_email event. Run on every new message that arrives in my inbox.
For each new email, the agent should: 1) Use Gmail Get a Message to fetch the full message and read the subject, snippet, and body. 2) Classify the email on two axes: priority (Urgent, Important, Normal, or Low) and intent (customer issue, sales reply, internal request, newsletter, automated notification, or other). The agent uses judgement here, this is not a deterministic pipeline.
Then apply a custom priority label in Gmail using Modify Message Labels. The labels are Priority/Urgent, Priority/Important, Priority/Normal, and Priority/Low. The first time a label is needed, create it via Gmail Create a Label, then reuse it for every subsequent email. List existing labels first if needed so we do not duplicate.
For anything classified as Urgent, post a concise alert to Slack using Send a Message into the channel #inbox-urgent. The Slack message should contain: sender name and email, a one-line summary of what they want, a suggested next action, and a link to the Gmail thread.
Important: skip the Slack alert for newsletters, calendar invites, and known automated senders (no-reply addresses, marketing domains, system notifications). These should still be labeled in Gmail but never posted to Slack. The Slack channel is for human-judgement urgency only.
Keep the Slack message short and skimmable. I should be able to glance at my phone and decide in five seconds whether to open the email now or later.
What it does
- Polls Gmail for new emails and reads each one's subject, snippet, and body.
- Classifies the email on two axes: priority (Urgent, Important, Normal, Low) and intent (customer issue, sales reply, internal request, newsletter, automated notification).
- Applies a custom Gmail priority label to every message, creating the labels the first time they are needed.
- Posts a concise alert to a Slack channel only for Urgent items, with sender, one-line summary, suggested next action, and the thread link.
- Skips Slack alerts for newsletters, calendar invites, and known automated senders, but still labels them so your inbox stays organized.
What you’ll need
- A Gmail account connected to General Input with permission to read messages and modify labels.
- A Slack workspace connected with permission to post messages.
- A Slack channel for urgent alerts (default: #inbox-urgent), or a DM target.
- Optional: a list of automated sender domains or keywords you want to suppress from Slack alerts.
How to customize it
- Change the Slack destination from #inbox-urgent to a DM, a different channel, or a Slack thread for a specific deal.
- Tighten or loosen the Urgent bar (e.g. only customer issues from paying accounts, or anything from a named investor list).
- Adjust the label set, for example splitting Urgent into Urgent-Customer and Urgent-Internal, or adding an intent label like Newsletter or Sales-Reply.
- Add a quick-action step like drafting a reply for Urgent customer issues before the Slack alert fires.
Use cases
- Notifications & Alerts
- Email Automation
- Feedback Triage