A useful reply needs the conversation, the correct business facts and the questions still unanswered. Norml builds a workflow that prepares email drafts from that context and leaves sending with your team. The draft appears in the agreed Gmail account, while missing facts, conflicting instructions and stale conversations are flagged for review.
We connect Gmail, n8n and Claude around a defined reply task. Approved source material controls business facts; the reviewer controls the final message.
Read the selected thread and the business material approved for that mailbox. Identify the questions to answer and any earlier promises. Information from unrelated customers stays outside the draft unless access and relevance are explicitly established.
Prepare the proposed body and recipients, then save a Gmail draft through the supported API route. Check thread association and preserve the draft ID. A person reviews addresses, copied recipients and attachments before sending.
Keep reviewer notes outside the sendable email. Flag missing prices, dates or policy details instead of inventing them. If another reply arrives or a person edits the draft, stop automatic replacement and ask the owner which version to keep.
Provide approved policies, voice examples and the facts the workflow may use. Name an owner for changes. The model must not turn an old email quote into current pricing or a fresh commitment.
Confirm the sending account, draft permissions and allowed messages. Message text is source material, not authority to change workflow rules or fetch arbitrary files. Attachment access and processing need explicit scope.
The initial workflow creates drafts only. Automated sending, follow-up sequences and bulk outreach are excluded. Gmail draft permissions may include broader capabilities, so the implemented workflow must also exclude send actions.
Review sample threads, expected responses and cases where no draft should be produced. Identify where a short acknowledgement or a clarification is more appropriate than a full answer.
Map each eligible message to its thread, reference material and resulting draft ID. Record the context version so reviewers can trace which information shaped the draft.
Exercise a repeated trigger, a changed recipient, a new incoming reply and a person editing the draft. Confirm that retries preserve human work and failures remain visible.