Every thunk has its own email address. When an allowed sender emails or forwards a message to that address (attachments included), an AI agent reads it and creates or updates work items according to the instructions you give it.
Use email when the work already arrives in someone's inbox — for example, forwarding a customer request, a supplier invoice, or a report — and you want the thunk to pick it up without retyping anything.
This is one of several ways a thunk can receive inbound requests. If another application should send work automatically, a webhook or shared form or the REST API is usually a better fit.
Find your thunk's email address
Open your thunk and go to Run → Inbound Requests.
Select the Email tab.
If you administer the thunk, click Instructions or Security in the bar at the bottom of the tab. Both dialogs show the thunk's email address with a button to copy it.
A new thunk shows a Waiting for email address ... tab instead of Email until its address is ready.
Choose who can send email to the thunk
For security, most outside email accounts cannot send or forward email to a thunk. Only the thunk's owner, its admins, and anyone you add to the list of allowed senders can.
To allow someone else:
On the Email tab, click Security to open Allowed Email Senders.
Type their email address in the box below the list, then click Add email sender. You can add several addresses at once by separating them with commas.
To stop accepting email from someone, click the delete icon next to their address.
Once email is accepted from a sender, the thunk processes it automatically according to the email channel's instructions.
Tell the AI what to do with each email
On the Email tab, click Instructions to open Message Channel Configuration, then set:
What kind of changes can the AI agent make when it receives a message on this channel?
AI can add and update data — create new work items and update existing ones.
AI can only add new data — create new work items but never change existing ones. This is the default.
AI can only update existing data — update existing work items but never create new ones.
Collection name — where incoming information lands. Choose one of your thunk's collections; each is labeled either Workflow Requests or Content Folder.
Instructions — guidance for the AI agent on how to handle a new message: what to extract, how to recognize an email about an existing work item, and what to ignore.
Click Save. Pick the narrowest access level that still lets the email channel do its job.
Check what arrived
The Email tab lists every message the thunk received, newest first, with its Status (Routed, Failed, In progress or Not routed). Open a message to see the email as it arrived, the work items it was routed to (or why it was not routed), and the AI's routing steps. From there you can use Route Message to route it again or pick the work item yourself. See Inbound Requests for more about the message page.
If emails are not being routed the way you expect, refine the channel's Instructions and route the message again.
Emailing a thunk to start work is different from a Conversation property, which lets the AI agent carry on an email thread with someone about a work item that already exists. See Conversation Properties for Email.