inbox-zero-claude: Instructions file for Claude Code

CLAUDE.md

inbox-zero-claude CLAUDE.md is an instructions file for Claude Code from lynxbat/inbox-zero-claude. It costs 459 tokens per session, scanned A, original, MIT.

Project instructions for Inbox Zero Claude, an email-triage workflow for Microsoft Outlook on macOS. It organizes messages and attachments using rules for folders, urgency, people, topics, companies, and sending permissions.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to configure and run inbox triage, surface VIP or urgent messages, categorize email, and save attachments and activity logs.
Why use it?
It gives the coding agent explicit rules for sorting business email and deciding which messages need attention or approval.

Instructions file for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: the file is CLAUDE.md. Also seen: mentions Claude Code.

This is lynxbat/inbox-zero-claude's own configuration. It tells Claude Code how to work on inbox-zero-claude itself, so it is not a mod to install elsewhere. Copy it as a starting point and replace the rules that are about this project. Everything inbox-zero-claude configures →

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to lynxbat/inbox-zero-claude. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.

Copy the file
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lynxbat/inbox-zero-claude/main/CLAUDE.md
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/lynxbat/inbox-zero-claude

Made for: Claude Code.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

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README.md
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Per session 459 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 459 The same file — it is already loaded in full.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00459 $0.00459
Opus 5 $0.00230 $0.00230
Sonnet 5 $0.00092 $0.00092
Haiku 4.5 $0.00046 $0.00046

Measured 8d ago against content hash 294922383240, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

inbox-zero-claude CLAUDE.md scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 8d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

CLAUDE.md · 66 lines

What it actually says

Inbox Zero Claude

Email organization and triage workflow powered by Claude Code.

Prerequisites

  • outlook-mcp configured in Claude Code
  • Microsoft Outlook for macOS

Quick Start

  1. Copy templates to create your config:

    cp -r templates/config logs/config
    cp -r templates/people logs/people
    cp -r templates/topics logs/topics
    cp -r templates/companies logs/companies
    cp -r templates/programs logs/programs
    mkdir -p attachments
    
  2. Edit logs/config/ files with your rules

  3. Run /inbox-zero to start triage

Email Organization

Before organizing emails, read these config files:

  • logs/config/folder-sorting-rules.md - Vendor classification, sender rules
  • logs/config/urgency-rules.md - VIP senders, urgency keywords
  • logs/config/send-permissions.md - Draft vs auto-send rules

Key Principles:

  • Archive is ONLY for truly irrelevant emails
  • All business emails belong in a categorized folder
  • VIP emails always surface for review

File Organization

Attachments: attachments/

  • Email attachments saved here for analysis
  • Organized by topic subfolder

Logs: logs/

  • config/ - Your sorting and urgency rules
  • people/ - Person-specific context and history
  • topics/ - Topic/thread tracking
  • companies/ - Vendor context
  • programs/ - Program tracking

Reports: ~/Reports/inbox-zero/

  • Generated analysis reports (PDF)

Cache

The email cache at email_cache.db speeds up triage by storing email metadata locally.

To sync: python scripts/email_cache.py sync To search: python scripts/email_cache.py search <term>

Creating New Log Types

Add any folder under logs/ for new context types. The inbox-zero workflow will read all markdown files in logs/ subfolders.

Example: logs/incidents/ for tracking incidents.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 8d ago First seen · 66 lines · 459 tokens per session scan A 294922383240

Subscribe to this mod's changes

inbox-zero-claude CLAUDE.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository lynxbat/inbox-zero-claude (5 stars, last pushed 8mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 459 tokens to every session, about $0.0023 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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