Email

With email turned on, teammates can start an Inspect session by emailing inspect@inspect.com and continue it by replying in the same thread. Inspect replies by email with an acknowledgment, its results, and a link to the web session.

Enable emailCopy Anchor Link

An organization administrator turns email on or off in Settings → Integrations. Select Enable on the Email row. The row shows an Enabled badge while email is on.

Turning email off stops Inspect from acting on new messages. Existing sessions remain available in the web app.

Who can use emailCopy Anchor Link

Inspect acts on a message only when every condition is met:

• The sender's address matches an active Inspect user with a verified email address.
• The message passes sender authentication (described below).

Inspect silently ignores any message that doesn't meet these conditions or fails one of the checks described under Security. It never sends a bounce or reply, so Inspect never reveals which addresses have accounts or how a message failed. Inspect never creates a session for an unknown sender. Each email prompt runs with its sender's Inspect access.

Start a sessionCopy Anchor Link

Send a new email to inspect@inspect.com. The subject and body become the prompt, and Inspect chooses a repository based on the content. Inspect reads the plain-text body only; attachments and inline images are not passed to the session. Include links or paste the relevant details in the message instead.

Inspect replies to the thread with an acknowledgment and a link to the session. Open the link to follow the work, review the diff, or continue in the web app.

Continue by replyingCopy Anchor Link

Reply to an Inspect email to answer a question, change the request, or ask for another pass. Inspect adds your reply to the same session and emails its response back to the thread. Only the new text you write becomes the prompt; quoted text from earlier messages is provided as reference context.

Email threads with other peopleCopy Anchor Link

You can add Inspect to a conversation with teammates by including inspect@inspect.com in the To or Cc field. When a reply in that thread includes other people, Inspect acts only when the new text mentions @inspect. Replies without a mention are ignored, so the conversation can continue normally.

Teammates collaborate in the same session, as in a Slack thread. When another teammate mentions @inspect in the thread, Inspect adds their message to the thread's session and runs it with their Inspect access. If they can't access that session, for example because it's private or they don't have a connected GitHub account, Inspect starts a separate session for them instead.

Inspect sends its replies to the sender and copies the other people on the thread.

SecurityCopy Anchor Link

Email is easy to forge, so Inspect verifies every message before acting on it:

• Sender authentication. The message must pass DMARC for the sender's domain. Make sure your domain publishes SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. Mail from a domain without a DMARC record, or whose mail isn't DKIM-signed, is ignored.
• Signed recipients. Inspect's address must appear in the To or Cc header, and the sender's DKIM signature must cover that header. This prevents someone who obtains a signed message from replaying it to Inspect.
• Automated mail. Inspect ignores auto-replies, mailing-list messages, and bulk mail, so out-of-office responses and list traffic cannot start sessions or create reply loops.
• Untrusted thread history. Quoted text in a reply may have been written by people outside your organization. Inspect passes it to the agent as untrusted reference material with instructions never to follow directions inside it. Only the authenticated sender's new text is treated as the request.
• Duplicate delivery. Each message is processed once, even if it is delivered more than once.
• Size limits. Inspect ignores messages larger than 10 MB and truncates very long bodies and quoted history.

Messages that fail these checks are ignored without a bounce or reply, so senders, including people outside your organization on a thread with Inspect, never receive delivery failures from Inspect.

Because an email prompt runs with the sender's Inspect access, protect mailbox access as you would any other sign-in method. Remove or deactivate users in Inspect when they leave your organization; deactivated users cannot start sessions by email.

TroubleshootingCopy Anchor Link

If Inspect doesn't respond to an email, it ignored the message. Check the following:

• Confirm that an administrator has turned on email in Settings → Integrations.
• Send from the same address you use to sign in to Inspect.
• Address Inspect directly in To or Cc. Messages that reach Inspect through Bcc, forwarding rules, or mailing lists are ignored.
• In a thread with other people, mention @inspect in your new text.
• Keep the message under 10 MB. Remove large attachments, which Inspect doesn't read.
• If Inspect still doesn't respond, your domain may be failing sender authentication. Ask your administrator to check that your domain's DMARC, SPF, and DKIM records are configured correctly.