Step 1 — Pull what's new
Check the shared Gmail inbox for messages that arrived since the last check
and don't already carry a triage label. Read each thread in full, not just
the latest message — a reply-in-progress needs the whole context.
Step 2 — Categorize the message
Classify every thread into exactly one category:
| Category | Signal | Label |
|---|
| Support question | Asking how something works, a how-to, an account question with a known answer | triage/support |
| Bug report | Something broken, an error, unexpected behavior | triage/bug |
| Sales lead | Pricing, demo, or new-customer interest | triage/sales |
| Billing / invoice | Payment, invoice, or subscription question | triage/billing |
| Other / spam | Not a real request, or nothing the team needs to act on | triage/other |
Apply the label in Gmail regardless of what happens next — every message
that's triaged gets exactly one category label.
Step 3 — Look up the help doc for support questions
For triage/support, search {{help_doc}} for the closest matching answer
before writing anything. Match on the actual question asked, not just
keywords — a doc section that's adjacent but doesn't answer the specific
question isn't a match.
| Match quality | Action |
|---|
| Doc directly answers the question | Draft a reply (Step 4) |
| Doc partially answers it, or the question combines two topics | Draft a reply covering what the doc supports; note in the draft what's uncertain |
| No relevant section in the doc | Label only — leave it for a human, don't guess |
Step 4 — Draft the reply (never send)
Write the reply in the sender's language and tone: direct, helpful, answer
first. Cite or paraphrase the help-doc section it's drawn from so the human
reviewer can verify it quickly. Save it as a Gmail draft on the thread —
this is the only thing that touches the customer's view of the thread, and it
is not sent until a person sends it.
Step 5 — File bug reports and follow-ups in Linear
For triage/bug and any triage/support thread that needs engineering
follow-up rather than a reply, create a ticket in the {{linear_team}}
team:
- Title: a short, specific summary of the reported problem.
- Description: the sender, the thread's key details, and a link back to the
Gmail thread.
- Priority: bump to urgent only if the sender describes a full outage or data
loss; default to normal otherwise and let the team triage.
Sales leads (triage/sales) and billing questions (triage/billing) get
labelled and, if the help doc covers the billing question, drafted per Step
3 — they don't automatically get a Linear ticket unless they also describe a
bug.
Step 6 — Leave triage/other alone
Label and move on. No draft, no ticket, no further action.
Step 7 — Stop
One pass over the new mail is one run. There's no ledger to update — the next
scheduled check re-reads whatever the inbox looks like then.