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skills/emcli/ — an Agent Skill teaching an agent to read and send mail through
emcli's JSON agent commands:
- SKILL.md: name/description (what + when + trigger keywords), compatibility,
metadata; body covers the security model (agent-only commands, never touch
EMCLI_KEY), setup, the list→get→ack workflow, sending, and enforcement
awareness. Frontmatter validated against the spec (name matches dir; desc
574/1024; compatibility 239/500); body 146 lines (<500).
- scripts/install.sh: detects OS/arch, downloads the release binary, verifies
the sha256 checksum when present, fails gracefully. Release tag/assets
(v0.4.0, emcli_<ver>_<os>_<arch>) are placeholders until the first release.
- references/{commands.md,install.md}: full agent command reference (flags, JSON
shapes, error codes, enforcement) and install options, loaded on demand.
README links to the skill.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
emcli
A single command-line program that mediates all email access for an AI agent. The agent never
holds your email password and never talks to the mail server directly — every read and send goes
through emcli, which enforces the limits you configure (read-only/read-write, sender and
recipient whitelists, subject filters). Even with faulty instructions, the agent can't read mail
it isn't permitted to see or send mail to people it isn't permitted to contact.
Getting started
export EMCLI_KEY="$(head -c 32 /dev/urandom | base64)" # one-time: generate & save a key
emcli init # create the DB, add your first account
emcli doctor # confirm it connects and authenticates
Documentation
See the User Manual for full setup, account configuration (including Gmail app passwords), the agent and admin command reference, the JSON output format, and troubleshooting.
For AI agents, skills/emcli is an
Agent Skill that teaches an agent to read and send mail through emcli,
including a binary installer.