Inbox & email · Workflow template

Log the promises you make by email

Every hour, Carly reads the email you sent and captures anything you committed to — "I'll send the deck", "I'll follow up Friday" — as a row in a running checklist. Emails with no promise are skipped.

Gmail

Outlook

Google Sheets

Build this in Carly Or copy the prompt ↓

The workflow at a glance

Trigger

Hourly

cron

Tool

Read sent email

Foreach

Each email

LLM

Did you promise?

Action

Log row

How this workflow works, step by step

1 Trigger Hourly

Carly runs this workflow on a schedule — hourly. No clicks, no reminders. It just fires.
2 Tool Read sent email

Carly pulls live data from Gmail or Outlook — "Read sent email." Whatever's needed for the next step is fetched fresh, not cached.
3 Foreach Each email

Carly loops over a list — each email — and runs the next steps once per item. Works for leads, attendees, rows, files, anything iterable.
4 LLM Did you promise?

An LLM step does the thinking: did you promise?. Carly picks the right model for the job and you can swap models per step if you need to.
5 Action Log row

Finally Carly takes action in Google Sheets: log row. This is the thing that actually moves the world.

When to use this template

You want this work to happen consistently without anyone remembering to do it.
You're already using Gmail and Outlook, and the manual version of this is eating real minutes a week.
You want a visible canvas you can audit and edit — not a black-box agent doing things you can't see.

When not to use it

This task only happens once or twice a month — the setup cost won't pay back.
The decision in the middle of the flow needs human judgment every single time, not just on edge cases.
Your stack doesn't include any of the apps above and you don't want to wire a generic HTTP step.

Build it in 10 minutes — copy this prompt

Paste this in an email to and Carly will build the workflow for you.

Hey Carly — please build me this workflow.

Name: Log the promises you make by email

What it should do:
Every hour, Carly reads the email you sent and captures anything you committed to — "I'll send the deck", "I'll follow up Friday" — as a row in a running checklist. Emails with no promise are skipped.

Steps:
1. Trigger: Hourly (cron)
2. Tool: Read sent email
3. Foreach: Each email
4. LLM: Did you promise?
5. Action: Log row

Tools to wire up: Gmail, Outlook, Google Sheets

Set it live once you've got it working. Thanks!

Or open the dashboard →

Apps you'll connect

Carly authenticates these for you over OAuth when she sets up the workflow.

Gmail

Outlook

Google Sheets

Questions teams ask before building this

How long does this workflow take to set up?

Most teams have "Log the promises you make by email" running in under 10 minutes. Copy the prompt on this page into an email to carly@usecarly.com and Carly wires the workflow together for you, including authenticating Gmail.

Can I edit this template after Carly builds it?

Yes. Every workflow lives on the Carly canvas where you can rename steps, change conditions, swap LLM models, add filters, and re-route branches. Templates are starting points, not locked recipes.

What if I use a different tool than the ones in this template?

Carly connects to 200+ tools, plus a generic HTTP node for any API that doesn't have a native integration. Tell Carly your stack when you send the prompt and she'll pick the right connectors.

Does this run automatically once it's built?

Yes. The trigger at the start of the workflow fires automatically — on a schedule, on an inbound email, on a webhook, on a calendar event, whatever this template specifies. Carly handles the listening; you only step in when a step is gated on you.

Does this workflow cost anything to run?

Running the workflow itself — triggers, tool calls, branches, filters, waits — is free with no per-task fees. You only pay for the AI steps in this template (the LLM nodes that classify, write, or decide). Everything around them runs at no cost.