Gmail

What it is

The business's inbox: customer questions, quotes, supplier bills and booking requests all land here. For many small businesses Gmail is the front desk.

How an agent connects

1. The AHL gateway. This is the default. The owner connects Gmail on their agents page, Google asks them to agree, and the agent gets a gateway token, never the Google token. The gateway offers gmail.search, gmail.read, gmail.draft and gmail.send.
2. Google's official MCP server (gmailmcp.googleapis.com). It is in Developer Preview and needs a Google Cloud project in the preview program. Its tools search and read mail, list drafts and labels, create drafts and change labels. It signs in with OAuth.
3. Gmail API directly, for code an intern builds. Request the narrowest scope. Google classes gmail.readonly and gmail.compose as restricted scopes. An app that stores or sends restricted-scope data from its servers must pass Google's security assessment.
4. Zapier and n8n have Gmail steps. Use them only for an owner's own simple automations.

What agents may do

agent_access: draft. An agent searches and reads mail and writes drafts. It never sends on its own. Every send is a person's decision.

Through the gateway

Searches and reads run straight away and are logged. Drafts are held for the owner while the agent is in rehearsal, then run directly once it is live. gmail.send is always held for the owner unless they grant a standing permission. Sends are limited to 10 recipients, plain text and no attachments. The owner's never-automate phrases and recipient allow-lists block a request before it is even held. Refunds, complaints about staff and anything legal stay with a person.

Watch out for

• Mail holds everything: bank notices, password resets, health details. Search with tight queries. Never paste whole threads into a prompt that leaves the job.
• Restricted scopes mean an app the intern builds may need Google's assessment before it can store mail in production.
• The official MCP server is a preview. Do not rely on it for a client's live work yet.
• The community Workspace server is popular and active, but it runs with your own OAuth client and can send mail. If you use it, start it with --read-only and on test accounts only.
• Never ask the owner for their password or a Google token. The gateway exists so nobody needs to.