Hand everyday errands to a local agent
Community report: the commenter runs a local agent they trust not to share conversations, and uses it like a search engine in place of a browser. They hand it errands: plan flights, a hotel and sights for a conference talk, convert downloaded FLAC music to OGG for a player, find DRM-free epubs for owned books, and make a tweakable OpenSCAD holder from a photo beside a tape measure. The comment only lists use cases.
- Agent or tool
- Custom agent
- Topic
- Email & Inbox
- Reported on
- Hacker News
- Added
- 2026-10-15
Why it matters
Email is where a lot of admin quietly piles up. An agent that can read, sort, draft and follow up turns an inbox from a to-do list into something closer to a summary. It is one of 106 sightings filed under Email & Inbox on Agent Sightings (number 48 by interest), and one of 182 involving Custom agent.
How you could try it
Here is a reusable prompt, written by us in our own words, that captures the task. Paste it into your own agent or any similar agent and adjust the details to your situation.
Go through my mail for this goal: hand everyday errands to a local agent. Propose labels, drafts, and unsubscribes as a checklist; change nothing until I approve.
Tip: Start with read-only access or 'draft, don't send', and check a few drafts before trusting it to send anything.
Source
Read the original first-hand account on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49980512. Our summary is a paraphrase; details are in the source.
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Related sightings
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- Rebook a work flight to save money
- Get a billing dispute refunded by a support agent