Drafting Emails with Context

Let Rowboat draft personalized email responses using your calendar and relationship history

Rowboat drafts email responses by pulling context from your knowledge base and calendar, ensuring every reply is personalized and informed by your relationship history.

How It Works

Rowboat processes your inbox and creates contextual drafts:

1. Scan for new emails

   Rowboat reads emails from your gmail_sync/ folder and tracks which ones it has already processed.

2. Classify each email

   Emails are categorized as:

   • Draft needed: Meeting requests, personal emails, business inquiries, follow-ups
   • Ignore: Newsletters, marketing, automated notifications, spam
3. Look up context

   Before drafting, Rowboat searches your knowledge base for:

   • Notes about the sender (role, history, relationship)
   • Their organization’s information
   • Related projects or topics
   • Past interactions and commitments
4. Check calendar

   For scheduling emails, Rowboat reviews your calendar to:

   • Find available time slots
   • Check for conflicts
   • Propose specific meeting times
5. Create the draft

   A personalized draft is written that:

   • Matches the tone of the incoming email
   • References past interactions naturally
   • Provides direct answers or next steps
   • Shows you remember the relationship

Example Usage

Batch processing

Draft responses to my new emails

Rowboat asks clarifying questions when needed. If someone is involved in multiple projects, it will ask which topic you want to discuss rather than guessing.

What You Get

Each draft is saved as a markdown file in pre-built/email-draft/drafts/ with this format:

# Draft Response

**Original Email ID:** 19048cf9c0317981
**Original Subject:** RE: Q1 Planning Meeting
**From:** [e-mail]
**Date Processed:** 2025-01-20

---

## Context Used

- Calendar: Available Tuesday 2-4pm, Wednesday 10am-12pm
- Memory: Sarah is partner at Horizon Ventures, last met Jan 15, 
  asked for updated financial model

---

## Draft Response

Subject: Re: Q1 Planning Meeting

Hi Sarah,

Tuesday at 2pm works great. I'll bring the updated financial model 
we discussed — the one with the revised CAC breakdown by channel.

Looking forward to continuing our conversation about the term sheet timeline.

See you then,
[Your name]

---

## Notes

Referenced the open item from Jan 15 meeting about the financial model.
Proposed specific time from available slots. Mentioned term sheet 
timeline as a natural follow-up topic.

Key Features

One draft, no options

Rowboat is decisive. You get one well-crafted draft based on context, not multiple generic variants to choose from.

Relationship memory

Drafts reference past interactions and demonstrate you remember the relationship, not generic pleasantries.

Smart filtering

Automatically ignores newsletters, marketing emails, and notifications so you only review what matters.

Calendar integration

For scheduling requests, drafts include specific available times from your calendar.

Classification Logic

Emails that get drafts

• Meeting requests or scheduling emails
• Personal emails from known contacts
• Legitimate business inquiries
• Follow-ups on existing conversations
• Emails requesting information or action

Emails that are ignored

• Newsletters (unsubscribe links, bulk sender indicators)
• Marketing emails (promotional language, no-reply senders)
• Automated notifications (GitHub, Jira, Slack, shipping updates)
• Spam or irrelevant cold outreach
• Outbound emails where you are the sender with no reply

Rowboat is conservative with the ignore list. When in doubt, it creates a draft with a note explaining any ambiguity.

Processing Summary

After processing, Rowboat provides a summary:

## Processing Summary

**Emails Scanned:** 24
**Drafts Created:** 3
**Ignored:** 21

### Drafts Created:
- 19048cf9c0317981: RE: Q1 Planning Meeting - Scheduling response with calendar check
- 19048d12a0421bc3: Introduction to Product - Business inquiry from known contact
- 19048e45f1532cd7: Follow-up on proposal - Referenced past meeting context

### Ignored:
- Newsletter from TechCrunch
- GitHub notification: PR merged
- Marketing email from SaaS vendor
...

State Management

Rowboat tracks processing state in pre-built/email-draft/state.json:

{
  "lastProcessedTimestamp": "2025-01-20T10:30:00Z",
  "drafted": ["19048cf9c0317981", "19048d12a0421bc3"],
  "ignored": ["spam_id_1", "newsletter_id_2"]
}

This ensures:

• No email is processed twice
• You can run batch processing repeatedly
• State persists across sessions

Best Practices

Review before sending

Rowboat creates drafts but never sends emails automatically. Always review:

• Tone and formality level
• Specific details and dates
• Attachments or additional context needed

Clarify when needed

If Rowboat asks which project or context to use, take a moment to specify. This leads to much better drafts than letting it guess.

Keep knowledge base current

The better your person and organization notes, the better your drafts. Update notes after:

• Important conversations
• Project milestones
• Changes in relationships or roles

Run periodically

Rather than drafting every single email in real-time, run email drafting:

• Once or twice daily during work hours
• After important meetings when follow-ups are expected
• Before batch email sessions

Data Sources

Gmail sync

Emails are read from the gmail_sync/ folder where your email sync stores messages.

Knowledge base

Person and organization notes from knowledge/ provide relationship context for personalized drafts.

Calendar sync

Calendar events from calendar_sync/ help with scheduling responses and availability checks.

Draft storage

Drafts are saved in pre-built/email-draft/drafts/ for your review and editing.

Related Features

• Meeting Prep - Prepare for meetings referenced in emails
• Document Collaboration - Update knowledge base notes with email insights