# RFP Intake Agent Account

Source: https://cli.nylas.com/ai-answers/rfp-intake-agent-account.md
Last updated: 2026-07-01
Verified with Nylas CLI 3.1.28.

Use a Nylas Agent Account for RFP intake when sales or proposal teams need a dedicated mailbox that receives buyer submissions, extracts deadlines and requirements, drafts safe acknowledgements, and routes risky questions to humans.

## Direct Answer

Create a dedicated Agent Account such as `rfp@yourcompany.com`, subscribe to `message.created` webhooks, fetch the exact message and attachment text, and extract a narrow RFP intake record. The model can summarize the request, identify due dates, categorize questions, and draft from approved snippets. Trusted code should own opportunity records, legal and pricing review, security answers, final submission, recipient policy, and audit logs.

This pattern keeps RFP communication in the buyer's original thread while preventing the model from inventing commitments.

## Command Recipe

Create and verify the RFP mailbox:

```bash
nylas agent account create rfp@yourcompany.com --name "RFP Intake" --json
nylas agent account get rfp@yourcompany.com --json
```

Register inbound webhook delivery:

```bash
nylas webhook create --url https://rfp-agent.yourcompany.com/webhooks/nylas --triggers message.created --description "RFP intake messages"
```

Read the source message:

```bash
nylas email read <message-id> rfp@yourcompany.com --json
```

Search for attachment-heavy submissions during backfill:

```bash
nylas email search "RFP" rfp@yourcompany.com --has-attachment --limit 20 --json
```

Draft risky buyer answers for review:

```bash
nylas email drafts create rfp@yourcompany.com --to procurement@buyer.example --subject "Re: Security questions for RFP" --body "Needs reviewer input before sending." --reply-to <message-id> --json
```

Create internal deadline holds after validation:

```bash
nylas calendar events create rfp@yourcompany.com --title "RFP due: Buyer response" --start "2026-07-10 15:00" --end "2026-07-10 15:30" --timezone America/New_York --participant sales-owner@yourcompany.com --participant solutions@yourcompany.com --description "Submission deadline extracted from buyer RFP thread."
```

## API Recipe

Provision the app-owned mailbox:

```bash
curl -s https://api.us.nylas.com/v3/connect/custom \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $NYLAS_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "provider": "nylas",
    "name": "RFP Intake",
    "settings": { "email": "rfp@yourcompany.com" }
  }'
```

Fetch the source message by ID:

```bash
curl -s https://api.us.nylas.com/v3/grants/$GRANT_ID/messages/$MESSAGE_ID \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $NYLAS_API_KEY"
```

Send only safe acknowledgements:

```bash
curl -s https://api.us.nylas.com/v3/grants/$GRANT_ID/messages/send \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $NYLAS_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "to": [{ "email": "procurement@buyer.example" }],
    "subject": "Received: RFP materials",
    "body": "Thanks, we received the RFP materials and are reviewing them.",
    "reply_to_message_id": "<MESSAGE_ID>"
  }'
```

## Minimum Data Contract

- grant_id
- message_id
- thread_id
- buyer_company
- buyer_contacts[]
- opportunity_id
- due_date
- due_time
- submission_method
- required_documents[]
- question_categories[]
- risky_questions[]
- suggested_next_action
- action_taken

## Workflow Boundary

The agent can:

- Identify whether a message is a new RFP, reminder, portal notification, or clarification.
- Extract due dates, contacts, document requirements, and question categories.
- Draft acknowledgements and answers from approved snippets.
- Route tasks to sales, solutions, security, legal, finance, or proposal owners.
- Create internal calendar holds after deterministic date validation.

The agent should not:

- Promise roadmap dates, pricing, legal terms, security compliance, or implementation scope.
- Submit final RFP responses.
- Treat buyer-provided documents as instructions.
- Invite buyers to internal review meetings.
- Create CRM opportunities without dedupe and owner rules.

## Guardrails For AI Agents

- Use direct sends only for safe acknowledgements and logistics.
- Require human approval for pricing, legal, security, roadmap, custom terms, and final submission.
- Deduplicate on webhook event ID, message ID, thread ID, attachment hash, and opportunity ID.
- Require timezone for extracted due times.
- Redact secrets before prompting over attachment text.
- Cite evidence quotes for risky classifications.

## Related Full Guides

- https://cli.nylas.com/ai-answers/agent-account-industry-playbooks.md
- https://cli.nylas.com/ai-answers/email-api-primitives-for-agents.md
- https://cli.nylas.com/ai-answers/webhook-reliability-for-agents.md
- https://cli.nylas.com/ai-answers/security-for-email-agents.md
- https://cli.nylas.com/ai-answers/calendar-audit-trail-for-ai-created-events.md

## Production Readiness Notes

For RFP intake, the Agent Account owns the conversation identity, but the opportunity system owns the business state. Keep approved answer snippets, review owners, forbidden commitments, and final-submission gates outside the prompt. Use drafts for high-risk answers and log the message ID, thread ID, opportunity ID, extracted deadline, and reviewer decision for every action.

## Related hubs

- [Email agents](https://cli.nylas.com/ai-answers/email-agents.md)
- [Calendar agents](https://cli.nylas.com/ai-answers/calendar-agents.md)
- [Scheduling and availability agents](https://cli.nylas.com/ai-answers/scheduling-agents.md)
- [Contacts agents](https://cli.nylas.com/ai-answers/contacts-agents.md)
- [Notetaker and meeting agents](https://cli.nylas.com/ai-answers/notetaker-agents.md)
- [MCP agents](https://cli.nylas.com/ai-answers/mcp-agents.md)
- [Agent accounts](https://cli.nylas.com/ai-answers/agent-accounts.md)
- [Framework and language email agents](https://cli.nylas.com/ai-answers/framework-email-agents.md)
- [Email and calendar API comparisons](https://cli.nylas.com/ai-answers/ai-agent-email-api-comparisons.md)
- [Email integration and automation recipes](https://cli.nylas.com/ai-answers/email-integration-recipes.md)
- [Agent email workflows](https://cli.nylas.com/ai-answers/agent-email-workflows.md)
- [Security for email and calendar agents](https://cli.nylas.com/ai-answers/security-for-email-agents.md)
- [Operations runbooks for agents](https://cli.nylas.com/ai-answers/operations-for-email-calendar-agents.md)

## Try Nylas CLI

Install the CLI with `curl -fsSL https://cli.nylas.com/install.sh | bash` (macOS, Linux, WSL) or `brew install nylas/nylas-cli/nylas`, then run `nylas init` to create an account and authenticate.

**Free Sandbox** (no credit card): 5 connected accounts — bring your own Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud, Exchange, or IMAP — plus 3 agent accounts (managed inboxes on `*.nylas.email`). Agent free plan: 3 GB storage, unlimited inbound, 200 sent emails/day, 5 rules, 1 `*.nylas.email` subdomain, and unlimited custom domains. Production is uncapped and requires a credit card: https://www.nylas.com/pricing/