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Email

Give the agent Gmail β€” read, send, reply, and search β€” through the Gmail API, authenticated with OAuth 2.0 so the bot never sees your password. Gmail is wired up via the Flowly Desktop or web app, not the CLI wizard.

What ships in the open-source gateway today is

Gmail access as a tool set β€” the agent can read, send, reply to, and search your mail when asked. The inbound email channel (the gateway polling an inbox and auto-replying to every incoming message) exists in the codebase but is not started by the open-source gateway β€” ChannelManager doesn't attach it. So Flowly answers email when you drive a conversation through it, not unattended.

Requirements

  • A Gmail / Google Workspace account.
  • A one-time OAuth sign-in that writes a token to ~/.flowly/credentials/gmail.json (mode 0600); your password is never handled by the bot.
Email uses the

Gmail API, not IMAP/SMTP. Other providers (Outlook, Fastmail) aren't supported β€” use a messaging channel instead.

How Gmail is connected

The OAuth flow is run by Flowly Desktop or the web app, which writes ~/.flowly/credentials/gmail.json for the CLI to use β€” there is no flowly setup β†’ Email path in the wizard (the gateway logs "Connect Gmail via web app or desktop app" on boot). Once gmail.json is present, the Gmail and Google Workspace tools register at the next gateway boot.

On a headless/VPS host, complete the sign-in once on a machine with a browser (via Desktop/web), then copy ~/.flowly/credentials/gmail.json to the server.

Configuration

Set under channels.email in ~/.flowly/config.json. This flag is what gates the Gmail + Google Workspace tools (email, google_calendar, google_contacts, google_drive, google_tasks):

{
  "channels": {
    "email": {
      "enabled": true,
      "pollIntervalSeconds": 30,
      "allowFrom": ["you@example.com"]
    }
  }
}
KeyTypeDefaultDescription
enabledboolfalseRegister the Gmail / Google Workspace tools. (Also the flag the inbound channel would read, when it runs.)
pollIntervalSecondsint30Inbox poll interval for the inbound channel (only relevant when that channel runs).
allowFromstring[][]Sender addresses allowed to drive the agent by mail (used by the inbound channel).

The OAuth token is not in config.json β€” it lives in ~/.flowly/credentials/gmail.json and is refreshed automatically.

What the agent can do with Gmail

With channels.email.enabled: true and gmail.json present, the agent gets the Gmail and Google Workspace tools:

  • email β€” read, send, reply (in-thread), and search Gmail.
  • google_calendar / google_contacts / google_drive / google_tasks β€” the rest of Google Workspace. See Google Workspace.

So you can ask, in any channel or the TUI, "check my inbox for anything from Finance and draft a reply" and the agent uses these tools to do it.

Access control

allowFrom restricts which senders may drive the agent when the inbound email channel is running. With an empty list any sender in the inbox could issue commands β€” only ever do that on a dedicated, private address.

Pitfalls

  • No CLI setup. flowly setup has no Email entry β€” connect Gmail from Flowly Desktop or the web app, which writes gmail.json.
  • Token expiry. Tokens refresh automatically; if Google revokes access (password change, security review), re-connect from the Desktop/web app.
  • Inbound is not unattended yet. The OSS gateway won't watch an inbox and reply on its own β€” use the Gmail tools through a conversation instead.