docs/adr/0053-agent-replies-open-as-drafts.md

0053: Agent replies open as drafts

Status: Local experiment. Native and real-account acceptance are separate.

Decision

Approving a reply_to_email proposal in Agent review no longer delivers mail. It validates the proposal exactly as before (digest, grant, MCP enabled, source fingerprint), then saves the frozen reply as an encrypted local draft and opens it in the composer. The user edits it and sends it with the normal Send button, which keeps the existing send validation, Sent-copy warning and unknown-send handling.

Because approval cannot send, the MCP "Allow sending replies" switch is removed from Settings. The stored allowSending field is kept for compatibility and no longer gates anything. Approval still needs MCP enabled and the agent's grant. The MCP tool never sends. Existing proposals keep their recorded statuses; new approvals report "Saved to Drafts. Not sent."

Consequences

  • An approved agent reply is always reviewable and editable before delivery.
  • Approval counts against the per-account draft limit and can fail when it is full.
  • Agents cannot cause delivery without a separate user Send action.