Connect an agent to MailKite with bounded email access
Choose hosted MCP or an SDK-backed application, verify a dedicated domain, and avoid handing an agent unrestricted account credentials.
Reviewed
Give the agent an application-owned email identity, not access to your personal inbox by default. MailKite supports hosted MCP for interactive assistants and signed inbound webhooks plus SDK sending for an application-owned agent loop. These paths share email infrastructure but have different execution and approval boundaries.
Choose the access boundary
| Connection | What to configure | Boundary to retain |
|---|---|---|
| Hosted remote MCP | Streamable HTTP endpoint and browser OAuth consent | Review the actual authorized account/tool access; OAuth does not imply a single-address grant |
| Backend SDK with a domain key | Dedicated verified domain/subdomain and a domain-scoped key | Key can access that domain, not just one address; narrow further in your application |
| Built-in inbox agent | An address route with agent action | Separate beta capability; not required for your own MCP client or worker |
Follow Connect your agent for your client’s configuration. In Claude Code, the published remote registration command is:
claude mcp add --transport http mailkite https://mcp.mailkite.dev/mcpOpen the client’s MCP connection flow and complete browser sign-in yourself. This command registers a connection; it does not verify a mail domain, create a receiving route, or send a message.
Prepare the agent’s identity
- Choose a dedicated application domain/subdomain and complete the domain checks.
- Keep employee-mail MX records unchanged unless you are deliberately migrating them. Configure incoming routing for the selected agent address separately.
- For a backend integration, mint a domain-scoped key and store it in a secret manager. Never include it in a message, model prompt, or browser bundle.
- Keep the send-capable credential outside a classifier-only model. Application policy must constrain which tools and addresses it can use.
Verify without sending
Confirm the connected account and request a read/list operation allowed by its grant. Check that a restricted backend connection cannot access another domain. Review the tool list before authorizing writes; access to a sending tool is not permission to use it for every proposed message.
Continue with authenticated incoming triage and reviewed replies. See built-in inbox agents only if you intentionally choose MailKite’s beta hosted execution instead of running your own loop.