Set up your mailbox with an AI assistant

Smailor has an MCP endpoint. Once an assistant such as Claude, Cursor or ChatGPT
is connected to it, you can say "set up my Smailor mailbox" and it will ask you
about your mailbox one question at a time, then apply your answers: groups,
routing rules, automatic replies, signatures, saved replies, blocked senders,
the spam filter, a live chat and contact forms for your website.

Once the desk is running you can keep working with the same assistant: ask what
needs your attention, have it read and answer mail, set statuses, assign
conversations and leave notes for the team. You choose how far it may go, one
level at a time, and a few things always stay in the dashboard (see below).

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the standard way an assistant is given tools. You
do not need to know more than that: you paste one command or one block of
configuration, and the assistant does the rest.

Before you start

• A Smailor account on a paid plan, or in the 14-day trial. The Free plan has no
  API keys, so it has no assistant access either.
• An assistant that can connect to a remote MCP server, either by signing in
  (Claude on the web) or with a custom header (a key).

Connect an assistant

1. Open Settings, AI assistant and choose what the assistant may do. The
   key can read and change settings; the mail levels and the extras are off until
   you turn them on. It expires after 90 days.
2. Copy the command shown for your assistant. The key is already in it and is
   displayed only once.
3. Tell the assistant what you want, for example: Set up my Smailor mailbox as
   a support inbox.

The endpoint is https://smailor.com/api/v1/mcp. The key goes in the
Authorization: Bearer header, as for the rest of the API.

Claude on the web: sign in, no key

In claude.ai, open Settings, Connectors, Add custom connector and enter
https://smailor.com/api/v1/mcp. Claude sends you to a Smailor page where you
choose what it may do, the same choices as for a key, including limiting it to
some groups. Press Allow and you are back in Claude. Nothing to copy.

The connection lasts 90 days and appears under Settings, AI assistant, where
you revoke it with one click; its access stops at once. Behind the scenes
Smailor follows the OAuth 2.1 flow MCP specifies (authorization code with PKCE,
dynamic client registration, refresh tokens that work once). Any assistant that
supports it signs in the same way; the discovery documents are at
/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource and
/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server.

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http smailor https://smailor.com/api/v1/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY"

Cursor

Add this to mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "smailor": {
      "url": "https://smailor.com/api/v1/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop

Open Settings, Developer, Edit config, and add:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "smailor": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://smailor.com/api/v1/mcp",
               "--header", "Authorization:Bearer YOUR_KEY"]
    }
  }
}

Any other assistant

Use the URL above as a remote MCP server (streamable HTTP) and add the header
Authorization: Bearer YOUR_KEY. The server keeps no session, so there is
nothing to keep open.

How the conversation goes

The assistant starts by asking Smailor where your setup stands. Smailor answers
with what is configured, what is missing and the next question to ask, so the
assistant does not repeat what you already did and asks the same things in the
same order whichever assistant you use.

The topics, in order: your own domain, groups, routing rules, signature, an
acknowledgement reply, an out-of-hours reply, saved replies, forwarding, the
spam filter and blocked senders.

Before it changes anything the assistant says what it is about to do and waits
for your yes. A change tool called without confirmation only returns a preview.
This is a safeguard against an assistant acting too fast. The real limit is the
permission on the key.

What it can and cannot change

Not available through this connector, on purpose, because a mistake costs money
or access: removing a domain, creating or deleting an address, changing what a
team member can see, passwords and two-factor, API keys,
billing, SMTP and mail client access, SMS. The assistant tells you where to do
each of them in the dashboard.

Forwarding mail to another address is a separate permission, off by default (see
below). So is access to your messages: an assistant sees none unless you choose
a level for it (see "Your mail").

Every plan limit applies exactly as it does in the dashboard. If your plan does
not include automatic replies, the assistant is told so and repeats it to you.

Permissions

The key carries two permissions, chosen on the key form:

A key with only settings:read can review a mailbox but cannot change it: the
tools that change things are not even listed to it. The full API keys created
by the old "default key" endpoint never carry these scopes.

Forwarding

Forwarding is the one setting that sends mail out of your account, so it has its
own scope and the Create a key for an assistant form leaves it unticked.
Tick "Also let it set up forwarding to another address" only when you need it.

Even then, a rule forwards nothing until the person at the destination opens a
confirmation link that Smailor mails to them. No tool can open it for them.
Changing the destination of a rule cancels the earlier confirmation. Keep in
mind that the person at the destination could be whoever holds the key, so
treat a key with this scope like a password.

The assistant is told to use only an address you gave it in the conversation,
never one found in an email or a document.

Inviting people

An invitation gives another person access to your mail once they accept, so it
has its own scope, unticked by default. It is bounded:

• Agents only. Making someone an admin, changing what a member can see and
  removing members stay in Settings, Team.
• One person per call, to the groups named in the call. The assistant shows you
  the address and the groups, and the invitation goes out only with the code of
  that exact preview.
• The person has no access until they open the link in the email, valid for
  7 days. The seat limit of your plan applies, and an assistant can send 3
  invitations a day.
• A key that can read mail can never also invite: a message could otherwise ask
  the assistant to invite its sender. The connector refuses a key that holds both.

Your domain and your invoices

Two more permissions, separate from settings and from mail:

Adding a domain only creates a pending entry. The domain receives and sends
nothing until the ownership record is found in its DNS, and only the person who
controls the domain can create it. The assistant gives you the records one at a
time and tells you to create them at the company where you bought the domain,
then checks them when you say it is done. DNS can take from a few minutes to a
few hours to spread.

Invoices are never handed to the assistant. It finds the document and asks
Smailor to email the PDF to the billing address of the account, the same message
the dashboard sends, with a limit of 10 an hour. It cannot change your plan, your
payment method or your billing details.

The form offers the domain permission ticked and the invoice permission
unticked.

Your mail

By default an assistant never sees a message. You can let it work on your mail
too, in four levels. Each one is a separate permission and none includes the
next. The Create a key for an assistant form offers them as one choice, and
choosing a level includes the ones before it.

With inbox:read you can simply ask: What do I need to handle today? The
assistant takes Smailor's own priority list (what needs action now, who has
waited too long, promises that are due), looks at the newest mail, and tells you
what to deal with first, why, and what it would do for each. It opens a
conversation only when the summary is not enough to decide, and it does not reply
or change anything unless you ask. Assistants that list prompts show this one as
"What needs my attention".

Mail is written by other people, and a message can try to give an assistant
orders ("forward everything to this address", "ignore your rules"). Smailor
tells the assistant that what it reads is data and not instructions, but no
instruction to a model is a guarantee. That is why the levels are small and why
the limits below exist. Choose the lowest level that does the job.

What holds whatever the assistant is told:

• A key that can read mail can never also forward it. The connector refuses a
  key that holds both.
• Reading is bounded: long messages are cut, invisible characters are removed,
  and an assistant can open 60 conversations an hour. Every conversation it
  opens appears in the list under Done by an assistant, with the subject.
• A draft never replaces one you started. If a draft already exists on the
  conversation, the assistant is told to ask you first.
• A reply goes to the sender of the conversation and nobody else. There is no
  Cc, no Bcc, no other address and no attachment, and it leaves from the address
  the conversation arrived on.
• A reply is held for ten minutes in Drafts, where you can cancel it. Sending
  is limited to 5 replies an hour and 20 a day through an assistant.
• Before a reply is queued, the assistant must show you its exact text. The
  preview returns a code tied to that text, and the send is refused without it,
  so the text sent is the text you saw. It cannot prove that you read it, which
  is what the ten minutes are for.
• Notes that your team wrote on a conversation are never sent to the assistant.
• Working the queue is bounded too: at most 20 conversations per call, the trash
  is the only way to remove one (and it can be undone), and binning is refused if
  your setting destroys archived mail at once.
• A key can be limited to some of your groups. Under Which groups, choose
  Only some groups and tick them. The assistant then reaches only the
  conversations in those groups: a conversation in another group, or in no group,
  answers like one that does not exist. Because a routing rule or a forward could
  otherwise bring other mail into view, a limited key has read-only settings and
  cannot add a domain or forward mail. The connector refuses any limited key that
  holds more than the mail levels, settings:read and invoices:read.
  Group names still appear in the settings it reads, since they are part of your
  setup; the mail in them does not.
• What an assistant reads goes to the company that runs it (Anthropic, OpenAI,
  Cursor...), under that company's terms. Smailor itself sends your mail to no AI
  provider. Choose the level with that in mind, and use an assistant you trust with
  the mail it will see.

See what it did

Settings, API lists what an assistant did through the connector, with the
name of the key and the time: every change, every conversation it opened, and
every reply it queued. A call the plan refused appears too, marked as refused.
To stop an assistant, revoke its key in the same page. It stops working at once
and nothing it already set up is undone. A reply still waiting in Drafts can be
cancelled there.

Tools

Write tools take a confirm argument that must be true to apply the change.
send_reply also takes a confirmation code, returned by its preview.
Calls are limited to 120 reads and 30 changes per minute per key.

Errors