How to connect Codex to your support mailbox

What you need

• Codex installed and signed in, in the terminal or your IDE.
• A Spaces account. Your trial starts when you connect a chat account, with no card needed.
• The support mailbox, in Gmail, Outlook or with its mail server details.
• A notes file for support: your help centre link, known issues and the things only a person answers.
• If you want scheduled runs, a computer or server that stays on.

Step 1: connect your Email account to Spaces

You sign in to Gmail or Outlook through a secure link and approve the connection, or enter your mail server details for any other mailbox. Your account stays yours, and you keep using it on your phone as normal.

Once it is connected, the account shows in your Spaces dashboard. Connecting does not send anything. It only means Spaces can read and send on that account when an AI agent you have added asks it to.

Connect the support mailbox customers write to. If you also want Codex to see your own inbox, connect it as a second account, so you can keep support and personal mail apart in every request.

Step 2: add Spaces to Codex

1. Run the command below once. It is saved in ~/.codex/config.toml for every Codex client.
2. Run codex mcp login spaces and sign in to Spaces in the browser.

codex mcp add spaces --url https://api.spacesos.com/mcp
codex mcp login spaces

To check it worked: Run codex mcp list, or /mcp inside Codex. Spaces is listed with its tools.

You sign in on Spaces' own page during this step, so Codex never sees your Email login or your Spaces password. If Spaces does not show up:

• Check the address is exactly https://api.spacesos.com/mcp, with nothing added at the end.
• Run the sign-in step again, in case the first sign-in in the browser did not finish.
• Restart Codex so it reads the new settings.
• If it still does not appear, the Codex MCP docs have the current steps, and our Codex setup page has ours.

Step 3: try it

Start a Codex session in the folder with your notes file, and ask in plain words. Start with requests that only read:

• List the support emails from the last 24 hours that have no reply yet.
• Sort them into bugs, billing, how-to questions and feature requests.
• Save draft replies to the how-to questions using notes/support.md. Do not send anything.
• Which threads have gone back and forth more than four times?

Start with a question that only reads, like the first one. It shows you that Codex can see your Email messages before you let it send anything. Then try a draft, read it carefully, and only then let it send.

Good to know

Codex can run on a schedule without you starting each session, which makes it a good fit for a support mailbox that fills up overnight. It can also send when you are not watching, so begin with summaries and drafts.

Use normal sessions first, as in the example below, then a scheduled morning summary, and only later let runs reply to simple questions. A Spaces routine can also send a set reply, such as "Thanks, we reply within one working day". A routine is not an AI, and it sends text you wrote in advance.

Codex may ask you to approve tool calls in a session. Leave that on while you are getting started.

What Spaces lets Codex do with email

• List and read the emails in the mailbox, with their attachments, and look in its folders.
• Reply on an existing thread, so the customer sees one conversation.
• Send one new email to one person, with up to four people in cc.
• Save a draft in the mailbox for a person to check and send.

There is no bulk email, no bcc and no tracking, and Spaces refuses to reply to someone who has asked not to be emailed. A new chat here is a new email thread. A reply to an email that arrived in the last week is never held back by the daily limits. Spaces sends one email at a time to one person, never bulk email.

A worked session: clearing support before stand-up

Here is an interactive Codex session for a two-founder company that sells a booking app to salons. Names and details are examples.

Spaces sends the four replies at least 30 seconds apart. Codex only said the bug was fixed because you told it so in the session. Put that rule in the notes so it never says it on its own.

A scheduled morning summary

Because Codex can be run from a script, you can have it read the support mailbox early each morning and leave you a summary before you start. OpenAI's Codex docs explain how to run it that way. A good summary run:

1. Reads everything that arrived since the last run, and sends nothing.
2. Sorts each email into bugs, billing, how-to and requests.
3. Flags anything that mentions a refund, a cancellation, a security worry or an angry tone.
4. Saves draft replies for the how-to questions it can answer from the notes.
5. Writes a short summary for you, such as a file in the repository or a note to yourself.

For a run that keeps going all day rather than once a morning, tell Codex how to listen. Ask it to call wait_for_events, which waits until something new arrives and returns it at once, then to call it again with the next_cursor it was given. Checking the chat list over and over looks like a bot to the platforms, and wait_for_events does not touch the platform at all.

Keep the key for scheduled runs in an environment variable, never in the config file or the repository:

[mcp_servers.spaces]
url = "https://api.spacesos.com/mcp"
bearer_token_env_var = "SPACES_API_KEY"

Notes for Codex to read

# notes/support.md
Product: Snip, a booking app for hair and beauty salons.
Help centre: [link]. Always link the help article rather than pasting long steps.
Known issues: none. Only I add lines here. Never say an issue is fixed unless it is listed here.
Billing: VAT invoices, refunds, cancellations, plan changes: leave for me.
Security: anything about access, passwords or data: leave for me and flag at once.
Feature requests: thank them, say it is on the list we consider. Never promise a date.
Tone: friendly, plain, short paragraphs. Sign off "Thanks, the Snip team".
Always: reply on the existing thread. Save as a draft unless the run is allowed to send.

Draft first, then reply

Asking Codex to hold replies as drafts in Spaces is another way to work: nothing goes out until you approve it, and you can review the held replies by asking Codex to list them.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Letting Codex say a bug is fixed because a commit mentions it. Keep a known-issues line that only you edit.
• Using Spaces for release announcements to all customers. It is one-to-one email; use a mailing tool for lists.
• Letting scheduled runs send from day one. Summaries and drafts first.
• Answering billing by email from the agent. A person who can see the account should do it.
• Mixing the support mailbox and your own inbox in one request. Name the mailbox each time.

Summing up

With Spaces, Codex can read your support mailbox, sort it, save drafts and reply on threads, one email at a time. Give it a notes file with a known-issues line only you edit, start with a morning summary and drafts, keep billing and security for a person, and let Spaces' sending limits keep the mailbox in good standing.

How Spaces keeps your account safe

Whatever you ask, Spaces keeps your Email account inside safe limits: at least 30 seconds between messages, up to 100 a day, and 40 new conversations a day at most, with a gentler start for a newly connected account. If the agent tries to go faster, Spaces holds the message and says when it can try again.

New conversations warm up over the first weeks after you connect:

A new chat here is a new email thread. A reply to an email that arrived in the last week is never held back by the daily limits. Spaces sends one email at a time to one person, never bulk email.

These are Spaces' own limits. They lower the risk of a restriction, but they cannot remove it, because Email makes its own decisions about accounts. Read the note at the top of this page before you connect.

Pricing

Plans from $19 a month

Which mailboxes work?

Gmail and Outlook through a secure sign-in, and most other mailboxes with your mail server details. Codex works with all of them the same way once they are connected.

Can Codex save drafts instead of sending?

Yes. Ask it to save drafts and they appear in the mailbox's drafts folder, ready for a person to check and send. That is the right way to start.

Can Codex answer support email while I sleep?

Yes, if you run it in the background on a machine that stays on. Most teams start with a morning summary and drafts, and only later let it reply to simple how-to questions.

Can Codex read screenshots customers attach?

Spaces can fetch attachments for Codex. What Codex makes of an image depends on how you run it, so treat its reading of a screenshot as a first look, not a diagnosis.

How many support emails can it send a day?

Up to 100 a day once the mailbox has settled in, at least 30 seconds apart. Replies to emails that arrived in the last week are never held back by the daily limits.

Can Codex send a release note to all our customers?

No. Spaces sends one email to one person, with no bcc and no tracking. A mailing tool is the right place for announcements.

Does Codex see the mailbox password?

No. For Gmail and Outlook you sign in on Spaces' secure link, and Codex signs in to Spaces. For other mailboxes the server details are entered in Spaces, not in Codex.