Email Importance Alerts

How Armbrain flags the emails that need your attention after ingestion, so nothing urgent slips through the cracks.

Why This Matters

Email ingestion pulls client emails into Armbrain as memories. That is great for building knowledge over time, but it does not tell you which emails need a response right now. A decision buried in a thread from two days ago is just as dangerous as a missed meeting invite.

After emails are ingested, Armbrain automatically scans them for urgency signals and surfaces a short list of emails that need your attention. No extra commands needed -- it runs as part of the existing ingestion flow.

How It Works

1. Email ingestion runs. This happens automatically at session start (if you have an email MCP connected) or when you manually trigger /cmo-ingest.
2. Urgency scan. Armbrain evaluates each newly ingested email for four types of urgency signals.
3. Priority summary. The top five most urgent items appear as an "Emails Needing Attention" section in your session start or morning briefing.

You do not need to turn this on or configure anything. If emails were ingested, the scan runs.

What Gets Flagged

Armbrain looks for four types of urgency:

Deadline Mentions

Emails that reference specific dates or time pressure:

• "Need this by Friday"
• "Before the board meeting next week"
• "EOD today"

Escalation Language

Emails where the tone suggests increasing urgency:

• "This is urgent"
• "Following up again"
• "We're concerned about the timeline"
• "ASAP"

Unanswered Questions

A client asked you something and you have not replied:

• "What's the status of the campaign?"
• "Can you confirm the budget?"
• Any direct question in a thread with no response from you

Stale Threads

Conversations where the client's last message is more than 48 hours old with no reply from you. These are the ones that quietly slip through the cracks.

What the Alert Looks Like

The summary appears as part of your session start or /cmo-brief briefing:

Emails Needing Attention (3)
1. Sarah Chen (Julica) -- Asked about Q3 budget 2 days ago, no reply
2. XSCAPE contract -- Expires Friday, Marcus mentioned in yesterday's email
3. BetaCorp -- Tom escalated: "Need the campaign assets ASAP"

Each item tells you three things: who it is from, what the issue is, and how long it has been waiting.

Limits

• Maximum five items. The alert surfaces only the top five by urgency. If there are more, the most urgent ones take priority.
• Only newly ingested emails. Emails from previous ingestion runs are not re-scanned. The alert covers what came in this session.
• No automated responses. The alert tells you what needs attention. It does not draft replies or send anything on your behalf.

When You See "No Emails Needing Attention"

If all ingested emails are low urgency (newsletters, FYIs, routine updates), the alert section says "No emails needing attention" and moves on. You still have the ingested memories from those emails -- they just did not trigger any urgency signals.

When No Emails Were Ingested

If no email MCP is connected, or no new emails were found, the urgency scan does not run at all. No alert section appears. This is normal if you do not use email ingestion or if there is nothing new since your last session.

Tips

• Check the alert first thing. The morning briefing (/cmo-brief) includes the alert automatically. Start your day by addressing the flagged items.
• Stale threads are the sneaky ones. Deadline mentions and escalation language are obvious. Stale threads -- where a client is quietly waiting -- are the ones most likely to damage a relationship.
• Use the alert to prioritize, not to panic. Five items is the cap. If all five are urgent, triage by client relationship value and deadline proximity.

Key Details

• Automatic. Runs after every email ingestion with no configuration needed.
• Surfaces in /cmo-brief and session start. You see it when you start your day.
• Read-only. The alert does not modify any data or send any emails.
• Respects client isolation. Alerts only reference emails matched to client minds you own.

Related Guides

• Email Ingestion -- how client emails get into Armbrain
• Daily Loop -- the full morning workflow including briefings and prep