Curated task stack

Best CLIs for Email & Calendar.

Search mail, inspect calendars, draft replies, and coordinate schedules with human approval. This is a ready-to-share stack with install commands, verification checks, agent packs, and guardrails.

Primary CLI
notmuch

notmuch is a strong fit for email & calendar. Shows the indexed email count.

Agent pack
notmuch fits email & calendar well, especially for email search, mail indexing, and knowledge retrieval from the terminal.
A solid pick from Notmuch.
Easy to automate.
Stack

Install, verify, then work.

1. Sync email locally
mbsync / isync

Curated OpenCLI pick

Pack
Install
brew install isync
Verify
mbsync --help
2. Search email
notmuch

Curated OpenCLI pick

Pack
Install
brew install notmuch
Verify
notmuch count
3. Read calendar
khal

Curated OpenCLI pick

Pack
Install
pipx install khal
Verify
khal list today 7d
4. Look up contacts
khard

Curated OpenCLI pick

Pack
Install
pipx install khard
Verify
khard --version
Agent loop

Email and calendar loop

  1. 1Confirm the account, mailbox, calendar, and date range.
  2. 2Search or list relevant messages/events and summarize with IDs or dates.
  3. 3Draft responses, agendas, or next actions without applying changes.
  4. 4Ask before sending, archiving, deleting, inviting attendees, or changing events.
Safety

Guardrails

  • Needs network access.
  • Output is mostly plain text.
  • Better for local use than CI.
  • • Ask before destructive, paid, deploy, send, merge, publish, or secret-exposing actions.