Ask Where You're Staying Next Week, Get an Instant Answer: Hermes Agent Reads His Bookings From a Local Email Database
- Level Advanced
- Setup1–3 hrs (estimated)
- Evidence Some evidence
- CostNot stated in source
- No-codeNo
What they did
Instead of having his agent search Gmail live, he syncs all his mail to a local IMAP server with mbsync. When a booking or purchase email arrives, a parser script (written once per merchant by a frontier model) adds it to SQLite. Asking Hermes 'what's the address of the place we're staying next week?' runs a quick SQL query instead of digging through emails. He says it's faster, cheaper, more reliable and avoids rate limits.
How it went
Instant answers about trips and purchases from a local database, without searching emails every time.
Worth knowing
- Hacker News comment by sksksk (Oct 22, 2026 Denver time): Hermes Agent queries a SQLite table built from parsed booking/purchase emails synced locally with mbsync, which he finds faster and more reliable than live email search.
- A local copy of all your mail is sensitive; encrypt the disk and keep the IMAP server local only.
Prompt
Cleaned version rewritten from the source — not a direct quote.
Help me set up a local copy of my email ([accounts]) with mbsync and a local IMAP server. Then, for booking and purchase emails from [merchants], write one parser per merchant that pulls date, place, address, confirmation number and price into a SQLite table. When I ask a travel or purchase question, answer by querying that table and cite the source email.
Recommended
Try it in Grok Bot
Grok Bot with email connected can keep a running bookings sheet the same way, adding each confirmation as it arrives.
- Copy the prompt (button below).
- Open Grok Bot chat and paste it. Replace any [bracketed] placeholders.
- Connect the listed tools (Gmail, Email) as connectors when Grok Bot asks.
- If the task repeats, ask: "Make this a daily routine."
Alternatives: the same prompt works in Hermes Agent, Claude, ChatGPT Agent, OpenClaw.
Set it up
Tools: Gmail, Email · Stack: Hermes Agent + local IMAP (mbsync) + SQLite
- Read the original source for full context.
- Connect the tools your agent needs.
- Paste the prompt and replace [bracketed] placeholders.
- Run once manually and check the output before scheduling it.
Generic suggested steps, not from the source.
Evidence
Hacker News comment by sksksk (Oct 22, 2026 Denver time): Hermes Agent queries a SQLite table built from parsed booking/purchase emails synced locally with mbsync, which he finds faster and more reliable than live email search. A local copy of all your mail is sensitive; encrypt the disk and keep the IMAP server local only
Source: HN · 2026-10-22 · Verified by us: not yet · Report broken or outdated