Recipe: Shared Inbox Status

Review the health of one or more shared inboxes - open items, completed work, unassigned emails, and how assignments are distributed across team members.

Prerequisite: Read the spark base skill for tool reference and filter syntax.

Access level required: read-only.

Steps

Step 1: Discover shared inboxes

accounts {}

Note each shared inbox address and the team it belongs to.

Step 2: Check open items

For each shared inbox:

emails { "folder": "shared@co.com:Inbox", "filter": "is:shared_inbox_open" }

These are active items that still need attention.

Step 3: Check unassigned items

emails { "folder": "shared@co.com:Inbox", "filter": "assigned_to:unassigned" }

Unassigned items are falling through the cracks - no one owns them yet.

Step 4: Review per-member assignments

team { "name": "Team Name" }

The assignment summary shows how work is distributed. For a deeper look at a specific member's load:

emails { "folder": "shared@co.com:Inbox", "filter": "assigned_to:alice@co.com" }
emails { "folder": "shared@co.com:Inbox", "filter": "assigned_to:bob@co.com" }

Step 5: Check completed items

emails { "folder": "shared@co.com:Inbox", "filter": "is:shared_inbox_done" }

Review recently completed items for a sense of throughput.

Step 6: Present the status

Report per shared inbox:

• Open: N items awaiting action
• Unassigned: M items with no owner
• Per member: assignment counts (flag anyone with significantly more or fewer)
• Done: K items completed recently

If there are multiple shared inboxes, present each separately, then a combined summary.

Tips

• Run this daily for active shared inboxes, weekly for quieter ones.
• Unassigned items are the most actionable finding - they represent work that nobody is looking at.
• Combine per-member counts with recipe-team-workload for a fuller picture of who has bandwidth.
• If a shared inbox has high open count but low unassigned count, work is distributed but not being closed - look for stale assignments.
• Use thread to read any item that looks stale or unusual.
• For teams with multiple shared inboxes, the total unassigned count across all inboxes is the key metric.