Clear your inbox on autopilot
An AI teammate that patrols Gmail on a schedule, drafts replies, tracks invoices to their due date, and only interrupts you for the things that can't wait.
Copy this prompt to start your first task:
What is this workflow?
"Clear your inbox on autopilot" means hiring a teammate that patrols Gmail on a schedule and sorts every scanned message into one of four buckets — collaboration inquiry, invoice, system notification, or permanently ignored — so nothing gets the wrong treatment. It drafts a reply for collaboration email into Gmail Drafts for your review, never sending anything on its own, and keeps an invoice tracker current with sender, amount, invoice number, due date, and status. Most of what it finds waits for the next patrol digest; a short, specific list of things that can't wait gets an immediate DM instead.
DM you immediately, not just log it for the next patrol digest:
- An invoice that just crossed its due date without payment
- A high-value, time-limited invite: an accelerator, a large sponsorship offer, anything with a closing window
- A first-ever inbound from someone who's never contacted you before. A new potential partner's first message deserves a fast look, not a spot in tomorrow's summary
- A promise the other side made and blew past, like "I'll send the draft by Friday" that Friday came and went on
- Anything that needs you to act on your own account: a top-up, a payment, an authorization, an approval
- A deliverable someone sent in that needs your review: a finished video, a piece of content, a file you're expected to sign off on
Everything else (routine drafts, filed system notices, a normal classification pass) the teammate handles on its own and simply reports in the next digest.
How to use this workflow
Hire an email assistant, and tell it what "handled" means
Open AI Teammates in the sidebar, click Hire AI Teammate, and pick the Email Assistant template. The template's default bio is generic inbox triage. Replace it on the Profile step so the teammate starts out already knowing this job has four buckets, not one:
Confirm the name and click Create teammate. They land in their own channel, which is where you'll send everything below. More on hiring →
Connect Gmail, and Notion if you're tracking partner rates
Gmail is the one this teammate can't work without. It's a real native connector, the same OAuth flow you'd use anywhere else in Helio. If you also keep a running database of partner quotes and rates, connect Notion too: it's also a real native connector, and lets this teammate log every quote it finds in email straight into that database instead of you copying numbers over by hand. Connect your tools →
Not every tool a playbook like this touches has a native connector. If you later want this teammate checking something on a site Helio doesn't integrate with directly, say a payment portal's status page, or a platform dashboard that's only a web UI with no API, don't wait for a "Connect" button that doesn't exist. Install the Stagehand Browser CLI skill (Skills & Plugins) and it drives an actual browser for that instead. It still won't authorize a payment on your behalf; that stays a manual, you-only action either way. But it can read a page for you that you'd otherwise have to go check yourself.
Set the four classification rules
Everything the teammate reads gets sorted before anything else happens to it. Give it the real rule set, not a vague "important vs. not":
| Category | What lands in it | What happens to it |
|---|---|---|
| Collaboration inquiry | Creator/partner outreach: quotes, video-progress check-ins, deal follow-ups | Drafted reply saved to Gmail Drafts, summarized in the patrol digest |
| Invoice | Anything with an amount, an invoice number, and a due date | Added to the invoice tracker, flagged if overdue |
| System notification | Automated platform email, no reply expected | Listed in the digest only, marked "no reply needed" |
| Permanently ignored | Senders you've told it to skip: competitor marketing, spam | Skipped entirely, doesn't appear in the digest at all |
Let it track invoices to their due date, not just their arrival
For every email that lands in the invoice bucket, the teammate keeps sender, amount, invoice number, due date, and status, re-checking that status every patrol instead of just once when the email arrived:
Confirm what waits for the digest and what doesn't
The classification rules decide what kind of email something is; this rule decides how fast you hear about it. Most of what the teammate finds is fine sitting in the next scheduled digest, but a handful of things aren't, and treating them the same way is how an overdue invoice or a first-time high-value inbound sits unread for hours:
Put the patrol on a schedule
Open Automations in the sidebar and click Create via Chat. On Home, choose this teammate and send the prefilled scheduled-task starter. When the interview asks what to schedule, use the recurring job below. This is what turns the rules above from something it does when asked into something it does on its own:
This flow won't send email on its own: sending external email is a sensitive action, so replies always land in Gmail Drafts for you to send yourself. Reading your inbox, classifying messages, and updating the invoice tracker run on their own without pausing for approval. See Control for what pauses for sign-off and what doesn't.
Tips for Better Results
| Tip | Description |
|---|---|
| Give it the real classification rules up front | The four buckets only work well if you hand over specifics — what counts as an invoice, which senders to permanently skip — instead of a vague "important vs. not." |
| Review drafts before they go out | Replies land in Gmail Drafts, not your sent folder. Read the exact wording before you send anything. |
| Name exactly what deserves an immediate DM | Overdue invoices, high-value time-limited invites, first-time inbound, missed promises, account actions, and deliverables needing review are the only things that skip the digest — everything else should wait for it. |
| Connect Notion if you track partner rates | Without it, quotes found in email only show up in the digest; with it, they're logged straight into your rates database. |
Common Questions
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