Autopilot

e2a Autopilot

Autopilot turns one existing e2a inbox into an always-on local agent trigger. It uses the current e2a protection and CLI surfaces; it does not require or propose server, API, database, SDK, MCP, or core-CLI changes.

Use tether instead when the owner wants to steer an already-running interactive session by email. Use a cloud webhook instead when a stable public service should own the workflow. Autopilot is the local-machine daemon: e2a listen connects outbound, so the machine does not need a public endpoint.

Required conversational behavior

Conduct onboarding as a conversation. Ask one logical question at a time, reflect material answers, explain a tradeoff before asking for a risky opt-out, and skip facts the user already supplied. Do not paste the entire questionnaire.

The interview must establish:

1. The task outcome. Offer the built-in customer-support starter or a custom task.
2. For support: scope, exclusions, approved knowledge, escalation conditions, tone/signature, response expectations, and refund/billing/security/legal limits.
3. An existing e2a inbox and its human owner.
4. One inbound authorization mode: exact sender addresses or verified sender domains. The current protection gate cannot mix both modes on one inbox.
5. Non-matching inbound mail goes to e2a human review. Do not offer a silent bypass or “any authenticated internet sender”; the current surface cannot express the latter safely.
6. Outbound review, default on. Turning it off requires the warning and the exact acknowledgement requested by the interview.
7. Owner CC on every reply, default on. Turning it off requires a warned acknowledgement.
8. Prompt-injection screening, recommended and default on. Turning it off requires a warned acknowledgement.
9. Claude Code, Codex, Hermes Agent, or a custom executable; its absolute path, workspace, and isolation mode. (OpenClaw is unavailable in this release: its invocation flags are unverified.) Hermes and custom executables require an acknowledged external isolation boundary because Autopilot cannot verify one for them. A built-in container runner is not implemented in this release; use an explicitly reviewed custom wrapper.
10. launchd, systemd, or foreground operation.

Use the plugin-local entrypoint for the authoritative interview and policy. autopilot.sh sits in this skill's own directory, next to this SKILL.md. Substitute its absolute path for $AUTOPILOT in every command below; the script resolves its own resources, so any working directory works.

"$AUTOPILOT" interview

It saves after every answer and can resume.

Confirmation is a hard boundary

Render the deterministic plan after onboarding:

"$AUTOPILOT" plan

Show the complete output, limitations, and 64-character plan digest to the user. Then ask for confirmation of that exact digest. A casual earlier “yes,” approval of the design, or permission to continue polishing is not installation approval.

Only after the user confirms the displayed digest may you run:

"$AUTOPILOT" install --confirm <digest>

install is visibly mutating. It uses the operator's current account-scoped e2a CLI session to verify inbox ownership, save the existing protection document, mint one dedicated agent-scoped supervisor key, apply the confirmed protection, verify it, and create owner-only local state and a secret-free service definition. It rolls back protection and revokes the new key if installation fails. It never stores the account credential.

Installation deliberately does not start the service. Starting an always-on agent is a second intentional action. Ask before running:

"$AUTOPILOT" start --agent support@example.com

Never start Autopilot merely because install succeeded.

Enforced architecture

The supervisor owns the agent-scoped e2a key. A task runtime never receives an e2a key, MCP credential, forward token, or arbitrary mailbox access. Each job gets a new local socket and capability exposing only:

• current-message (read)
• current-thread (read)
• reply (submit)
• escalate
• complete

The gateway binds reads and replies to the current job, chooses reply recipients from the existing thread, and injects the owner CC when configured. It has no list, search, delete, arbitrary-recipient, key-management, protection, or review- approval operation. Do not “help” a runtime by adding direct e2a MCP or CLI access.

Inbound delivery is defense in depth:

• e2a's existing protection gate allows the selected authenticated senders and sends every non-match to human review;
• the local receiver independently refuses an event that does not match policy;
• prompt-injection screening is a separate content check for allowed mail; and
• a message released by a reviewer is found by listener delivery or periodic unread reconciliation.

Durable metadata-only jobs move through pending, running, retry, done, and dead. Message bodies are fetched only for the active job and are not written to the spool or logs. Stale running jobs recover after restart. Listener bouncing and independent unread reconciliation cover silent WebSocket gaps.