Recipes / Inbox triage: prospect emails waiting on you, matched to open deals with nudge drafts

Inbox triage: prospect emails waiting on you, matched to open deals with nudge drafts

Gmail + HubSpot

IntermediateAEsSDRs

Who it's for

AEs and SDRs who lose track of prospect emails they meant to answer. You get the threads that have waited more than 3 days, tied to the open deal, with a short reply drafted for each. HubSpot can be swapped for Salesforce, Attio or Pipedrive. On Outlook, Microsoft 365 (Work IQ) can read mail instead of Gmail, but it needs a Global Administrator and can send mail, so guard it closely.

What you get

Waiting threads, matched to deals, with two drafts ready for approval. Sample output: every company and person in it is fictional.

Prospect emails waiting on you for more than 3 days (Oct 16): 3 matched, 9 skipped (newsletters, internal, no HubSpot match)

| From | Company | Waiting | Their ask | Open deal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Priya Raman | Mossgate Labs (fictional) | 5 days | Can the pilot start Nov 2? | Mossgate pilot, Proposal, $18K, close Nov 20 |
| Sam Whitlock | Quarry Lane Analytics (fictional) | 4 days | Asked for the SOC 2 report | Quarry Lane renewal + upsell, Negotiation, $48K |
| Alex Rivera | Fernhill Software (fictional) | 8 days | "Let's pick this up after the board meeting" | Fernhill expansion, Proposal, $22K. Skipped: they asked to wait |

Draft 1 (not created yet)
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Pilot timing

Hi Priya,

Sorry for the slow reply. Yes, a Nov 2 start works on our side. I'll send the pilot checklist on Monday so your team can review it before kickoff.

Does 30 minutes on Oct 22 work to go through it?

Jordan

Draft 2 (not created yet)
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Security docs

Hi Sam,

Apologies for the wait. I've asked our security team for the SOC 2 report and will send it as soon as I have it, by Wednesday at the latest.

Jordan

Check before approving: Draft 2 promises a date. Confirm it with your security team.
Reply 'approve 1', 'approve 2' or 'approve all' to create Gmail drafts. Nothing is sent.

Time and cost

Estimate About 10–15 minutes, most of it editing the drafts.

Assumptions: One run over about two weeks of inbox, with roughly 10 candidate threads and 3 drafts.

Exact credit costs depend on your plan with each vendor. Check the tool pages before a large run.

MCP servers

Every server is confirmed in: Claude

Set up in a chat app

Every server in this recipe is confirmed for Claude. Connect each one, then paste the prompts below into one conversation.

Developer setup

Auth setup and mcp.json for Claude Code and Cursor
  • Gmail: Sign in with OAuth in your client (run /mcp in Claude Code). Do it once interactively, and the client stores and refreshes the token.
  • HubSpot: Sign in with OAuth in your client (run /mcp in Claude Code). Do it once interactively, and the client stores and refreshes the token.

Put this in .mcp.json (Claude Code, project root) or ~/.cursor/mcp.json (Cursor). Swap the example keys for your own, and don't commit real ones. Remove the // comment lines if your client requires strict JSON.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gmail": {
      "url": "https://gmailmcp.googleapis.com/mcp/v1"
    },
    "hubspot": {
      "url": "https://mcp.hubspot.com"
    }
  }
}

Step-by-step prompts

  1. My email domain is {my_domain}. Search my Gmail for threads from the last {days} days where the latest message is from someone outside {my_domain}, it arrived more than 3 days ago, and I haven't replied. Skip newsletters, notifications and calendar invites. Quote the last line of each.
  2. For each sender, find the contact and company in HubSpot and any open deals: deal name, stage, amount, close date and last activity. Drop senders with no open deal, and any thread with newer activity logged in HubSpot. Don't change anything.
  3. Show me the remaining threads as a table, oldest first. Skip any where the prospect asked me to wait until a later date.
  4. For the threads I pick, write a short reply to each: answer their ask if I can, or say when I will. Under 80 words, no pressure. Flag any date or promise in the text. Show me the text only.
  5. After I approve each one, create it as a Gmail draft to the prospect. Don't send anything.

Run it on a schedule (optional)

Where this goes wrong

Gotchas

Download

Get the prompts, guardrails and expected output as one Markdown file. Paste it into a Claude Project or ChatGPT project's instructions, or save it as CLAUDE.md for Claude Code.

Download inbox-triage-nudges.md

Vendor sites: HubSpot. If we join an affiliate program, these links will be labeled as affiliate links.