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What this is: A reusable definition of what I consider important in email. This policy is applied wherever email shows up — inbound triage, agent reading my inbox during a task, chat summaries, daily briefs, alert tasks. It does not run on its own. Tasks (a watcher, a brief, an agent flow) read this policy and act on it. Tools touched (when this policy is applied): Gmail.

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How to read this policy

Each section answers one question about me:
  1. Who do I always want to hear from?
  2. What signals from customers matter?
  3. What security and money events should never be missed?
  4. What categories do I care about beyond the above?
Anything matching these definitions is important. Everything else is background.

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1. People and senders that matter to me

Stored in memory and refreshed when I tell CORE about a new key contact:
  • Named individuals — investors, advisors, co-founders, key customers (by email address)
  • Vendor and supplier domains — accountants, lawyers, compliance providers, payroll, infra
  • Specific senders flagged by me as “always notify”
When a new email matches any of these, treat it as important regardless of content.
If memory has nothing here, ask once:
“Who are the people and companies I should always treat as important? (names, emails, or domains)”
Store answers immediately.

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2. Customer signals that matter to me

The body — not the sender — tells me this. A customer is important when they are:
  • Reporting a bug or breakage in my product
  • Asking for support or stuck on something
  • Giving feedback (positive or negative) about a feature
  • Reaching out as a prospect — interested in buying, trying, or evaluating
Identify the product by name (from memory). Generic newsletters that mention the product in passing are not customer signals.

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3. Security and money events that matter to me

Always important regardless of who else is involved:
  • Security alerts — sign-in from a new device, password change, suspicious activity (from accounts I own: Google, GitHub, banks, financial tools)
  • Payment failures — declined card, failed payout, overdue invoice
  • Account access changes — added user, permission change, billing role change
  • Anything from my bank, primary financial platforms, or tax/compliance providers about deadlines or actions required

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4. Categories I’ve defined for myself

Free-form. Stored in memory as {category_name, matching_rule}. Examples:
  • “Press or media reaching out” → matches journalists, podcasters, conference organisers
  • “Hiring funnel — top candidates” → matches replies in active hiring threads
  • “Fundraising — investor replies” → matches threads with known investor domains
These are the categories I care about that don’t fit the buckets above. Add freely.

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How this policy is used

Other surfaces consume this policy:
  • Triage tasks decide what to surface vs. skip
  • Notification tasks decide what to push live
  • Daily / weekly brief tasks decide what to lead with
  • Agent-in-the-loop work uses this to know which threads need my attention vs. which it can handle quietly
  • Chat queries like “what’s important in my inbox?” answer against this policy
Each consumer is responsible for how to act — this policy only defines what matters.

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Edge cases

  • Ambiguous signals → if a sender matches but the body is clearly automated/promotional, treat as not important. Promotional ≠ important even from a key vendor’s marketing list.
  • One-off relevance → if something matches only once and isn’t likely to repeat, do not add it to the policy. Keep this lean.
  • Conflicting rules → security and money events always win over category preferences.