agent-skills/email/himalaya/references/python-email-fallback.md

Python Email Fallback (when himalaya is not installed)

When himalaya CLI is unavailable, use Python's built-in smtplib and imaplib with credentials from ~/.hermes/config.yaml.

Sending Email

import smtplib
from email.mime.text import MIMEText

smtp_host = "claw.163.com"
sender = "ephronren@claw.163.com"
password = "<from config>"
recipient = "recipient@example.com"

msg = MIMEText("Body text", "plain", "utf-8")
msg["From"] = sender
msg["To"] = recipient
msg["Subject"] = "Subject"

with smtplib.SMTP_SSL(smtp_host, 465) as server:
    server.login(sender, password)
    server.sendmail(sender, recipient, msg.as_string())

Reading Email

import imaplib
from email import message_from_bytes
from email.header import decode_header

imap_host = "claw.163.com"
imap_port = 993
user = "ephronren@claw.163.com"
password = "<from config>"

with imaplib.IMAP4_SSL(imap_host, imap_port) as mail:
    mail.login(user, password)
    mail.select("INBOX")
    _, data = mail.search(None, "ALL")
    ids = data[0].split()
    eid = ids[-1]  # latest

    _, msg_data = mail.fetch(eid, "(RFC822)")
    msg = message_from_bytes(msg_data[0][1])

    def decode_str(s):
        if s is None:
            return ""
        parts = decode_header(s)
        return " ".join(
            p.decode(c or "utf-8", errors="replace") if isinstance(p, bytes) else p
            for p, c in parts
        )

    print(f"From: {decode_str(msg['From'])}")
    print(f"Subject: {decode_str(msg['Subject'])}")

    if msg.is_multipart():
        for part in msg.walk():
            if part.get_content_type() == "text/plain":
                payload = part.get_payload(decode=True)
                charset = part.get_content_charset() or "utf-8"
                print(payload.decode(charset, errors="replace"))
                break
    else:
        payload = msg.get_payload(decode=True)
        charset = msg.get_content_charset() or "utf-8"
        print(payload.decode(charset, errors="replace"))

Pitfalls

• Port 25 times out — 163 SMTP blocks plain SMTP. Use SMTP_SSL with port 465 instead.
• Port 465 config mismatch — config.yaml says port 25, but actual working port is 465.
• send_message tool limitation — send_message(action='send', target='email:addr@domain') does NOT resolve external addresses. Must use Python/terminal directly.
• IMAP fetch auto-marks as read — mail.fetch(eid, "(RFC822)") and even fetch(eid, "(BODY[HEADER.FIELDS ...])") automatically set the \Seen flag. If you need to check unread count after reading, the count will drop. Use mail.search(None, "UNSEEN") before fetching to get accurate unread count.