Gmail Agents
Connect your Gmail to Bothive and build agents that triage, draft, and respond to emails — automatically.
What you can build
Email Triage Agent
Reads incoming emails, classifies them by category, labels them, and drafts initial replies for your review.
Auto-Responder
Answers common inquiries automatically — FAQs, pricing, support questions — using your knowledge base.
Outreach Composer
Drafts personalized outreach emails based on lead context. You review and send, or it sends automatically.
Meeting Coordinator
Reads scheduling emails, checks Google Calendar availability, and sends meeting invites — end to end.
Setup
1
Connect Gmail via OAuth
In your bot dashboard → Integrations → Gmail → Connect with Google.Sign in and authorize the scopes Bothive requests:
gmail.readonly— Read emailsgmail.compose— Create and send draftsgmail.labels— Apply labels
2
Configure your agent
Create a new bot or open an existing one. Add Gmail capabilities:
3
Write your instructions
Be specific about what the agent should and should not do with emails.
4
Test in the Playground
In the Playground, simulate email content and check that the agent:
- Reads the email correctly
- Drafts an appropriate reply
- Applies the right label
- Does NOT send unless you explicitly authorize it
5
Add a safety review step
For production, configure the agent to create drafts and await human approval before sending. Only switch to auto-send after the agent has proven accurate over 50+ test cases.
HiveLang v5 example — email triage agent
Gmail capabilities reference
Best practices
Always start with drafts, not sends
Always start with drafts, not sends
When building an email agent, start by having it create drafts only. Review 50–100 drafts before enabling auto-send. The cost of a wrong email is high.
Use labels for workflow stages
Use labels for workflow stages
Create Gmail labels like
Bothive/Triaged, Bothive/Replied, Bothive/NeedsReview. This makes it easy to track what the agent has processed.Limit the inbox query scope
Limit the inbox query scope
Don’t query the full inbox every run. Use
label: "INBOX" with unread: true and limit: 20 to keep runs fast and focused.Handle out-of-office and bounce replies
Handle out-of-office and bounce replies
Add instructions to skip auto-reply emails. Check the
In-Reply-To header and skip if the subject starts with “Out of Office” or “Delivery failed”.Test with your own address first
Test with your own address first
Before connecting your main inbox, test the agent with a dedicated test Gmail account. Send test emails to yourself and verify drafts are correct.