docs(imap): state the permissions a restricted API key needs - #250
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The IMAP/SMTP guide told users to grab an API key and said nothing about permissions, so a restricted key built from a reasonable-looking set (inbox_read, message_read, message_send, drafts) silently fails to sync: LOGIN succeeds, SMTP sends, and the mailbox never updates. That gap produced a real support case — three days of customer-side debugging — and 78 inboxes fleet-wide in the same state. The four `label_*_read` grants are the non-obvious part. All of them are required because the inbox event log IMAP syncs from can carry any restricted label, including `blocked` and `unauthenticated`, which have no IMAP folder of their own and are therefore impossible to guess from the IMAP surface alone. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Abpr9uYtCN8W4qdG7ub3rH
sidharth0612
approved these changes
Sep 16, 2026
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The IMAP/SMTP guide told users to grab an API key and said nothing about permissions. A restricted key built from a reasonable-looking set —
inbox_read,message_read,message_send, drafts — silently fails to sync: LOGIN succeeds, SMTP sends, and the mailbox never updates.That gap produced a real support case (three days of customer-side debugging) and 78 inboxes fleet-wide in the same state.
Adds a callout to Finding Your Credentials with the full required set and the symptom to recognize.
The four
label_*_readgrants are the non-obvious part: all of them are required because the inbox event log IMAP syncs from can carry any restricted label — includingblockedandunauthenticated, which have no IMAP folder of their own and so are impossible to infer from the IMAP surface. An unrestricted key (created without apermissionsobject) is unaffected and works as-is; the callout says so first, so the common case isn't scared off.Pairs with agentmail-to/agentmail-imap#44, which makes the server report this condition as
missing_permissionand relay the remedy to the client in an IMAP[ALERT]instead of mislabeling it as invalid credentials.🤖 Generated with Claude Code
https://claude.ai/code/session_01Abpr9uYtCN8W4qdG7ub3rH