emaillisted

# Email Reach for the lightest tool that does the job. Walk the four-tier ladder below top to bottom, trying each tier first and falling through to the next ONLY on tool absence OR auth failure. **Never use BYOB browser automation for a simple read or send** — it is slow, flaky, and burns browser context. BYOB is a last resort for tasks no CLI/MCP path can do at all. ## Tool Ladder (priority order) ### Tier 1 — `valor-email` (preferred: Redis-cached, fastest) The project email CLI. Reads hit a Redis history cache (fast); sends queue via the email relay. Use this first whenever it is on PATH. ```bash valor-email read --limit 5 valor-email read --search "deployment" --since "2 hours ago" valor-email send --to alice@example.com --subject "Re: Deploy" "Looks good" ``` Fall through to Tier 2 if `valor-email` is not on PATH, or a read/send fails because the bridge/relay is unreachable. ### Tier 2 — `gws gmail` (Google Workspace CLI, direct API) Google's official Workspace CLI. On PATH after `npm install -g @googleworkspace/cli`. Requires a one-time human `gws auth setup` / `gws auth login` OAuth step — if a call fails with an auth error, fall through. ```bash gws gmail users messages list --params '{"userId": "me", "maxResults": 5}' gws gmail users messages get --params '{"userId": "me", "id": "MSG_ID"}' ``` Fall through to Tier 3 if `gws` is not on PATH OR every call errors with an authentication failure (binary present but unauthenticated). ### Tier 3 — Gmail MCP (`mcp