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Your agents can have real email addresses. Send them requests, forward threads to handle, and get replies back over regular email. This page covers how to connect an inbox, set up your own domain, and what to do when something goes wrong.
Agents read their inboxes freely and answer questions about what’s in them. They only send or reply when you ask. They never email anyone unprompted.

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Getting an inbox

Connect an inbox from the agent’s profile page. You need edit rights on the agent to do this. Pick an address from two options: A few things worth knowing upfront:
  • Some local parts are reserved on shared domains and can’t be used: admin, support, info, noreply, security, billing, contact, sales. Custom domains don’t have this restriction.
  • If a suggested address is taken, the platform offers the next available variant automatically. Addresses you type manually are never silently changed.
  • Addresses are permanent. Once any workspace claims an address, it’s never reissued, even after that workspace removes it. If an address shows as taken but looks available elsewhere, this is why.
Once connected, reply to the welcome email the agent sends you. It warms up the inbox so early mail from that address lands reliably rather than going to spam.

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How sending works

Receiving is always on. Sending is deliberate:
  • Agents send or reply only when you ask. They won’t cold-email, run outreach, or add people to lists on their own. “Grow my audience” is not standing permission to email strangers.
  • When you ask an agent to email you, it already knows your address from the conversation.
  • Shared domain rate limit: 10 outbound emails per rolling week, shared across all agents in your workspace. Replies to mail the agent received don’t count against this. Inbound is unlimited. Anyone can forward to your agent or email it directly with no cap. Custom domains aren’t subject to the outbound limit.
  • Deliverability isn’t guaranteed for brand-new inboxes. Confirm a message got through (a reply back is the clearest sign) before depending on it for anything important.
  • If an outbound email bounces, the bounce details show up in the conversation so you know what happened.

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What agents can do over email

Forward to handle

Forward a contract, a thread, or a request. The agent takes it from there.

Long-form requests

Detailed, async asks that don’t need a live back-and-forth.

Attachments

Send documents, images, and files as normal email attachments. Agents read and work with them in both directions.

A paper trail

Every exchange lives in your inbox, threaded like any other email.
Forwarding a request works like looping in a colleague:

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It’s the same agent

Email is another doorway to the same worker. Agents bring their full memory and persona to every email thread. Skydive recognizes you by your email address, so a request sent by email connects to the same account and history as your web and Slack conversations.

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Emailing people outside your workspace

By default, only workspace members can reply to your agents in a way that reaches them. For agents that need a real back-and-forth with outside contacts (vendor coordination, client follow-up, supplier check-ins), set the agent’s visibility to External. Open the agent’s … menu, choose Manage privacy, and select External. After that, anyone your agent emails can reply and the conversation continues normally. Group threads work too. On threads with three or more participants, agents behave like a participant: they reply when addressed and don’t interrupt. Replies to an agent’s own private outreach are rejected rather than leaking into a group thread.

Visibility settings

What External visibility means and how it affects who can reach your agents.

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Custom domains

Custom domains let agents send and receive on addresses at a domain you own. They require a paid plan. Any workspace member can add a domain; only the member who added it or a workspace admin can remove it.

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Setup

1

Add the domain

Go to Workspace settings > Email domains > Add domain.
2

Publish the DNS records

The dialog shows the records to add at your DNS host:
  • DKIM TXT record
  • SPF TXT record on the mail. subdomain
  • MX record (priority 10) pointing to our inbound mail host
  • Bounce-handling records
If your domain already has an SPF record on mail., merge ours into it rather than adding a second one. Two v=spf1 TXT records on the same host is invalid and verification will hang.You can also use Entri to publish the records automatically if your DNS host is supported.
3

Verify

Click Verify domain in the dialog. Verification doesn’t start automatically. A background sweep re-checks pending domains every hour, so a DNS fix you make will heal on its own, but clicking Verify speeds it up.
4

Create inboxes

Once the domain shows as Verified, you can create agent inboxes on it.

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Verification statuses

Verification moves through these states: not started > pending > verifying > verified (or invalid / failed if a record is wrong or missing). Each DNS record shows its own badge so you can see exactly which one is holding things up. DNS propagation can take a few minutes to a few hours. If verification still hasn’t succeeded after 48 hours, you’ll get a failure notice by email. A successful verification also sends a confirmation. Re-running Verify resets the 48-hour clock.

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After verification: two delivery gaps to check

“Verified” confirms the records the platform checks. Two additional issues can still affect delivery, and the dashboard warns about them after verification:
  • Missing apex SPF. Our SPF record lives on mail. (the sending subdomain), but your From address is on the apex ([email protected]). Strict receivers that only check the apex can rate-limit or reject. Fix: add include:amazonses.com to your apex SPF, or a dedicated apex SPF entry.
  • Duplicate DMARC. Two DMARC TXT records at the apex is undefined behavior; some receivers reject all mail from the domain. Keep exactly one.

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Google Workspace coexistence

You can run agent email on a domain that also runs Google Workspace. Google handles recognized users; agent addresses are unrecognized accounts that Google forwards to Skydive’s mail host. If you’d rather skip the routing setup, put agent email on a dedicated subdomain (e.g. mail.yourcompany.com) instead.
1

Add the domain

Go to Workspace settings > Email domains > Add domain. When the platform detects that your domain’s MX already points at Google, it asks for explicit confirmation before proceeding.
2

Publish DNS records

Add the records the dialog provides, keeping your existing Google Workspace MX records in place. Google’s MX should stay at priority 1; add Skydive’s inbound MX at priority 10. Also add the DKIM record and the mail. subdomain bounce record.Example for a domain yourcompany.com:MX priority alone doesn’t route unrecognized addresses to Skydive. You also need the routing rule below.
3

Add Skydive as a mail host in Google Workspace

In the Google Workspace admin console, go to Apps > Google Workspace > Gmail > Hosts and click Add Route:
  • Name: Skydive
  • Select Single host
  • Host name: Skydive’s inbound SMTP host
  • Port: 25
  • Enable the recommended TLS options
4

Add a routing rule

In Gmail settings, scroll to Routing and click Add another rule.
  • Check Inbound and Internal - Receiving
  • Set the action to Modify message
  • Check All inactive and unrecognized accounts
  • Check Change route and select the Skydive route
Save the rule. Gmail will now forward mail for any address that isn’t a recognized Google Workspace account to Skydive.
5

Create inboxes before mail flows

Create each agent inbox address before mail starts flowing to it. Google forwards but doesn’t queue for unknown addresses, so mail to an address with no inbox yet will bounce.

Reach it on the go too

Add text messaging for quick, mobile-friendly check-ins.