Mail Backends
SkillCommunicationTells your agent whether email actions read real Gmail or local demo data.
Available today. Use it from your connected AI after setup.
No other account needed.
Add ahel to your AI once: Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Claude Code or Codex. Then ask it to use this.
Then ask your AI: use the Mail Backends skill
About this skill
How Mail actions pick between the real Gmail API and synthetic local-emails fallback data per user. Use when mail data looks fake or empty, when a user has no connected Google account, or before claiming a message really was sent or fetched from Gmail.
What this skill tells your AI
The instructions your AI receives, as published by builderio/agent-native in templates/mail/.agents/skills/mail-backends/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.
Rule
Two mail backends, chosen automatically per user. When the user has a
connected Google account (isConnected(ownerEmail)), actions call the real
Gmail API. When no account is connected, the same actions fall back
transparently to synthetic local-emails data stored via getUserSetting /
putUserSetting. Never assume Gmail is connected — actions like
search-emails, list-emails, get-thread, get-email, and move-email
branch on this internally, so call them the same way either way.
Why it matters
The fallback exists so the app is usable and demoable without OAuth. It is not a queue that later flushes to Gmail. If you are in fallback mode, do not tell the user that mail left their real inbox or that a real Gmail record changed — say the data is local demo state.
Related Skills
inbox-reads-and-triage— reading mail and reporting coverage honestly.email-drafts— whatsend-emaildoes in each mode, including the synthetic "Sent" item written tolocal-emails.
Signals
- GitHub stars
- 7k
- Forks
- 613
- Last commit
- Sep 2026
Advanced
- Item type
- skill
- Key
mail-backends- Source
- github.com/builderio/agent-native