Boys' Email Daily Digest

Monitor children's email inboxes, log new messages, track sender frequency, and send daily digest summaries to each child's mom.

Architecture

Single Python script (/root/.hermes/scripts/boys-mail-monitor.py) with three commands:

Command	Schedule	Description
`collect`	Every 60m	Polls child inboxes for UNSEEN, logs to JSON, tracks senders
`summary`	Daily at 7 PM ET	Builds + sends daily digest HTML emails
`test-summary`	On-demand	Sends test digest to shonuff inbox for verification

Data files

File	Purpose
`boys-mail.json`	Rolling log of all collected emails (30-day retention by timestamp)
`boys-senders.json`	Sender frequency database (count, first/last seen, flagged status)

Children and Recipients

Child	Mom	Mom Email	BCC	Webmail
Garrison	Tina Brown	tinamichelle1008@gmail.com	g@germainebrown.com	webmail.iamgmb.com
Greyson	Kate Eubank	katherineeubank@gmail.com	g@germainebrown.com	webmail.iamgmb.com

IMAP polling details

Accounts: Defined in BOYS_ACCOUNTS dict — each child has their own IMAP credentials on heracles.mxrouting.net:993
Fetch: Uses BODY.PEEK[] to avoid marking messages as \Seen — boys' normal mail client still sees them as unread
Fallback: If BODY.PEEK[] fails, falls back to (RFC822) which does mark as seen
Dedup: Relies on IMAP UNSEEN state — a message is only returned once until someone marks it UNSEEN again

Sender frequency tracking

Every unique from_email gets a cumulative count, first/last seen timestamps, and a child association
High-volume alert: Senders with count >= HIGH_VOLUME_THRESHOLD (default 3) get flagged in the database and highlighted amber in the summary
Name enrichment: If a later email provides a display name for a previously-email-only sender, the name is updated

Daily summary email

HTML email structure

Title bar: Red border-bottom: 2px solid #dc2626 divider under child's name + date
Green "No new emails" pill when inbox was quiet (background: #f0fdf4, border: #bbf7d0)
Email table when there were new emails: From / Subject / Time columns
Top senders table showing who's been emailing the most, with amber highlighting for high-volume senders
Signature: Sho'Nuff full signature — red divider, circular SB badge, random title, random closing
Footer: Information about frequency adjustments, phone login credentials (available on request), webmail link, and Sho'Nuff signature with unsubscribe assistance offer

MIME structure

Both text/plain and text/html alternatives via MIMEMultipart("alternative"). Plain text has table-formatted content for email clients that don't render HTML.

Sho'Nuff signature (applies to ALL emails from this system)

<div style="border-top:2px solid #dc2626;margin-top:24px;padding-top:16px;">
<p style="font-size:12px;color:#999;margin:0 0 6px;">
<img src="https://core.itpropartner.com/shonuff-signature.svg" alt="SB" 
     style="width:40px;height:40px;border-radius:50%;vertical-align:middle;margin-right:8px;">
<strong style="color:#333;">Sho'Nuff Brown</strong><br>
<span style="color:#666;">{random_title} · shonuff@germainebrown.com</span>
</p>
<p style="font-size:12px;color:#888;font-style:italic;margin:8px 0 0;">_{random_closing}_</p>
</div>

Rotating titles (13): Operations Engineer, Infrastructure Mechanic, Digital Janitor, Systems Wrangler, Automation Specialist, Network Whisperer, Chief Problem Solver, Technical Fixer, Process Optimizer, Behind-the-Scenes Operator, Script Kiddie (Professional), Server Herder, Pipeline Plumber

Rotating closings (8): Smooth seas never made a skilled sailor., Keep your head on a swivel., Stay dangerous., The master has failed more times than the beginner has tried., Trust, but verify., Fortune favors the prepared., Not all who wander are lost., Done is better than perfect.

SVG image location: https://core.itpropartner.com/shonuff-signature.svg

Introductory/Welcome Email

Sent on first setup to each mom explaining:

Who Sho'Nuff is (assistant to Germaine)
What the daily summary contains
Offer to adjust frequency (reply to opt to weekly/etc.)
Offer to provide phone login credentials
Point to webmail URL
Offer to unsubscribe from unwanted senders

Cron

collect: hourly (no_agent, zero LLM cost)
summary: 7PM ET daily (no_agent, zero LLM cost)

Pitfalls

The first collection run finds ALL existing UNSEEN messages (backlog). This is correct — only new messages after that.
Date parsing with timezone: parsedate_to_datetime() returns aware datetime. Use .astimezone(timezone.utc) not .replace(tzinfo=timezone.utc).
SMTP: uses mail.germainebrown.com:2525 with STARTTLS (ports 25/465/587 blocked on netcup VPS).
Email addresses populated after user provides them; script was written with placeholders initially. Update the RECIPIENTS dict when user provides real emails.

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