The Reply Desk

What this is

A desk for your outbound inbox: paste a reply in, get the color and the reply to send back.

• Sorts every reply into Green, Yellow, or Red before you finish reading it.
• Drafts the exact message to send, matched to what they actually said.
• Offers two call times and books the meeting, with no calendar link.

The problem

→ A reply lands at 9am. You open it at 6pm. → The one asking about price sits longest, because it needs thought. → Flat noes pile up in the same stack as the hot ones. → Tomorrow there are five more.

You paid to get every one of those replies. Waiting is the only part that was free.

How it works

• Your business facts are pasted once and stay loaded. Every draft is built from them.
• Triage returns a color, one line of why, and the next action.
• Green means they want the next step, so you offer two times.
• Yellow means something is in the way, so you find the real reason first.
• Red means one polite line and stop.
• Draft writes the message. You are still the one who hits send.
• Log is a note or a sheet. It is how you find out which colors turn into calls.

Not a piece of software. Nothing to install. No automation to maintain, unless you want one.

What you need first

Get the files

The files live in a public folder on GitHub. GitHub is where people keep files like this. You do not need an account and you do not need to know how it works.

The folder: https://github.com/gary-chakraborty/gap-build-vault/tree/main/builds/ai-inbox-manager

You can read every file right there in the browser. Click a file name and it opens as a page.

To download all of them at once:

1. Open https://github.com/gary-chakraborty/gap-build-vault
2. Find the green Code button near the top right of the file list.
3. Click it. A small menu drops down.
4. Click Download ZIP at the bottom of that menu.
5. Open the downloaded ZIP, then open the folder builds/ai-inbox-manager.

Build it

Phase 1: Set up the desk and teach it your business

1. Go to https://claude.ai and sign in. Create a free account if you do not have one.
   • You should see a chat box in the middle of the screen and a sidebar on the left.
2. In the left sidebar, click Projects.
   • You should see a page titled Projects with a button for a new one.
3. Click New project. In the name field, type Reply Desk. Click Create project.
   • You should now be inside an empty project with its own chat box.
4. Open claude-md-snippet.md from the folder above. Fill in every bracket with your real details. Every one.
5. In your project, find Project knowledge on the right side. Click Add content, then Add text. Paste your filled in block. Save it.
   • You should see your text listed under Project knowledge with a file name next to it.

You know this phase worked when: you open a new chat inside the Reply Desk project, ask "what do I sell and who do I sell it to", and Claude answers with your real offer and your real buyer, not a generic description.

Phase 2: Load the prompts and triage your first reply

1. Inside the Reply Desk project, click the chat box and start a new chat.
2. Open triage-prompt.md. Copy the text inside the code block. Paste it into the chat. Press enter.
   • You should see Claude confirm it is ready and ask you to paste a reply.
3. Find an old reply from a real lead that you already answered yourself. Copy what you sent and what they said back.
4. Paste both into the same chat. Press enter.
   • You should get back a color, one sentence of why, and a next action.
5. Compare the color to what you decided at the time. If it matches, the desk is calibrated.
6. Open reply-drafting-prompt.md. Copy the code block, paste it into the same chat under the color, press enter.
   • You should get back a short message and a one line note on what to do after sending.
7. Rename the chat so you can find it tomorrow. Hover the chat in the sidebar, click the three dots, click Rename, and call it Desk plus today's date.

You know this phase worked when: you paste an old reply and get back the same color you picked at the time, plus a draft close enough that you would only change a word or two.

Phase 3 (OPTIONAL): Automate the paste step with n8n

Phases 1 and 2 are the whole build. This phase only removes the copy and paste. Skip it entirely if you are not already using an automation tool.

Step 1. Generate a workflow for your own stack. Open a new chat in Claude, paste this in, and answer its questions:

You are building an n8n workflow for me. I am not a developer, so explain every
answer in plain words and never assume I know an n8n term.

Before you write anything, ask me these questions one at a time and wait for my
answer each time:
1. Where do my cold replies land? (Gmail, Outlook, a sending tool like Smartlead
   or Instantly, or somewhere else)
2. Where do I want the drafted reply to appear? (as an unsent draft in my inbox,
   in Slack, in a spreadsheet, or somewhere else)
3. Where do I want the log to go? (Google Sheets, Airtable, Notion, or nowhere)
4. Do I want a notification when a hot reply lands, and where?
5. Which AI account do I have set up in n8n already, if any?

Once I have answered all five, build me a single n8n workflow that does this:

- Triggers when a new reply arrives in the place I named.
- Drops anything that is not a real human reply: out of office, bounces,
  auto-acknowledgements, and anything from a no-reply address.
- Sends the reply text to Claude with MY triage rules, and gets back exactly
  three things: a color of GREEN, YELLOW, or RED, one sentence of why, and the
  next action.
- Routes each color down its own branch.
- For GREEN and YELLOW, sends the reply text back to Claude with MY drafting
  rules and gets back a short message to send.
- Saves that message as an UNSENT DRAFT. Never send anything automatically.
- Appends one row to my log: date, lead name, lead email, color, the reason,
  and the draft.
- Notifies me only on GREEN.
- Has an error path on every step that touches an outside account, so a failure
  tells me instead of going quiet.

Output the workflow as n8n JSON I can import, with every credential field left
empty for me to fill in. Then, underneath the JSON, give me a numbered list of
what I have to click in n8n to connect each account, naming the exact buttons.

I will paste my triage rules and drafting rules in my next message.

Then paste the contents of triage-prompt.md and reply-drafting-prompt.md when it asks.

Step 2. Import what it gives you. In n8n, go to Workflows, click the three dots in the top right, then Import from File (or Import from URL if you saved it online). Save the JSON to your computer first, then pick it.

• You should see a canvas with connected boxes, each with a red warning triangle because no accounts are connected yet.

Step 3. Check it against this blueprint before you turn anything on. Click each node and compare. If a node is missing, add it. If a node sends instead of drafting, change it.

You know this phase worked when: you send yourself a test reply, and within a minute an unsent draft appears in your drafts folder, a new row appears in your log with the color YELLOW, and no message has been sent to anyone.

Run it the first time

Open your Desk chat. Paste in this reply, exactly as written. (This is a made up lead, not a real one.)

Hey thanks for reaching out, what's this going to cost roughly?

You should get back something close to this:

YELLOW Why: they are evaluating, not committing, and they asked a direct price question. Next: do not quote a number. Acknowledge the question and move to the call.

Now open your reply-drafting-prompt.md tab, copy the code block, paste it into the same chat underneath that result, and press enter.

You should get back something close to this:

Good question. It depends on scope, so it's something we cover on the call. Happy to walk you through it. Thursday at 2pm or Friday at 11am?

That is the whole loop. Reply in, color out, draft out, you send.

When it breaks

Tell me how it went

I am not asking for your email. There is no list, no sequence, nothing to unsubscribe from.

Two minutes, three things: how you found this, whether it was useful, and what you want me to build next. https://form.jotform.com/262194392563059

The next build comes from those answers.