---
name: al-207-have-an-agent-watch-your-work-apps-and-message-you-only-w
description: "Instead of asking an assistant for things, let it come to you: a short morning brief from your email, calendar and chat, check-ins every few hours that only ping you when something really needs you, and drafts it prepares in the background but never sends, pays, signs or deletes without your OK. Anthropic opened a research preview of Claude Duet on Oct 21, 2026, a proactive agent app built for professionals and small business owners that works this way. Use when the user wants help with proactive assistant (personal productivity) for a small business."
---

# Have an agent watch your work apps and message you only when something needs you

Instead of asking an assistant for things, let it come to you: a short morning brief from your email, calendar and chat, check-ins every few hours that only ping you when something really needs you, and drafts it prepares in the background but never sends, pays, signs or deletes without your OK. Anthropic opened a research preview of Claude Duet on Oct 21, 2026, a proactive agent app built for professionals and small business owners that works this way.

## Inputs to collect first
Ask the user for anything below that they haven't already given you. Don't guess missing facts.

- My email, calendar, Slack/Teams, and: list other apps
- Top priorities this month, key clients or people, deadlines, and…

## Instructions

Do the task below with the user's inputs in place of each [bracket].

You're my proactive assistant. You can see [my email, calendar, Slack/Teams, and: list other apps]. Here's what matters to me: [paste: top priorities this month, key clients or people, deadlines, and things I never want to miss]. Each morning, send me a brief of no more than 5 items: what needs a decision from me today, meetings I should prep for, and anything overdue. During the day, check my apps every few hours and only message me if something is urgent, from a key person, or blocks a deadline; group everything else into the next morning's brief. For routine replies, draft them for me to approve. Before you send a message, make a payment, sign anything or delete anything, show me exactly what you're about to do and wait for my yes. Tell me how often you messaged me this week and ask if I want more or less.

## Safety checks (share these with the user)

- Check every figure, price and total against your own records before anything is sent, posted or booked. A person approves refunds, discounts, payments and price changes.
- Remove names, contact details, account numbers and other personal data the task doesn't need before you paste, and check your AI tool's data and training settings.
- Read and edit the draft before it reaches a customer or goes public. If you later automate this prompt, start with "draft and notify me", not "send automatically".
- Check names, dates, numbers and any claim against your own source material before you use the answer. AI can misread or invent details.
- Say clearly which parts need a person to review or approve before anything is sent, paid, posted or filed.

## About this skill

- Works with: Claude Duet, Gmail, Google Calendar, Slack, Airtable
- Based on this real-world example: https://claude.com/resources/articles/claude-duet
- Free prompt from AgentPlaybook Real Estate: https://agentic-library.netlify.app/prompt/al-207-have-an-agent-watch-your-work-apps-and-message-you-only-when/
- To install in an agent that supports Agent Skills, save this file as SKILL.md in a folder with the same name as `name` above (for example in your skills directory). Install steps for Claude.ai, Claude Code, Cursor and Codex: https://agentic-library.netlify.app/skills/