Skill: Email Triage

Purpose

Rapidly process a backlog of emails by categorizing, prioritizing, and drafting responses or actions. Reduces inbox overwhelm and ensures nothing important is missed.

When to Use

• Inbox has grown unmanageable
• Returning from time away (vacation, sick leave, conference)
• Daily morning email processing routine
• Before an important deadline to clear blockers

Instructions

Step 1: Intake

Accept the email list in any format:

• Paste raw email subjects + senders
• Paste full email bodies
• Describe the emails in natural language

Step 2: Triage Categories

Assign each email to exactly one category:

Category	Meaning	Action
🔴 Respond Now	Urgent, requires your action today	Draft reply
🟡 Respond Soon	Important, deadline within the week	Queue for reply
📋 Action Required	No reply needed, but triggers a task	Add to task list
📖 Read Later	FYI, informational only	Archive after reading
🗑️ Delete/Archive	Noise, marketing, irrelevant	Delete immediately

Step 3: Draft Responses

For each Respond Now and Respond Soon email:

• Identify the core ask
• Draft a concise reply (3–5 sentences unless detail is required)
• Flag any information you need before sending

Step 4: Extract Tasks

For Action Required emails, extract concrete tasks:

- [ ] [Task from email] — From: [Sender] — Due: [Date if mentioned]

Step 5: Produce Triage Report

## Email Triage — [Date]

### 🔴 Respond Now ([count])
**From:** [Sender] | **Subject:** [Subject]
**Draft:**
> [Draft reply text]

---

### 🟡 Respond Soon ([count])
...

### 📋 Tasks Extracted ([count])
- [ ] [Task] — [Source email]

### 📖 Read Later ([count])
- [Subject] from [Sender]

### 🗑️ Archived/Deleted ([count])
- [Subject] — [Reason]

Example Prompt to Trigger

/email-triage
Here are my unread emails: [paste list or descriptions]

Output Format

• Triage report in structured markdown
• Draft replies inline for urgent emails
• Task list extracted and ready to copy
• Summary count per category

Notes

• Never assume you have context the user hasn't provided — ask if reply requires knowledge you don't have
• Keep draft replies professional and concise by default
• Flag emails that seem like phishing or spam
• Preserve sender names and subjects accurately
• If asked to integrate with the repo, save triage reports to docs/triage/email-YYYY-MM-DD.md