Built-in automations
What each shipped automation does — the inbox trio, the Resolve GitHub issues bundle, the sync and upkeep templates, and the pre-installed packs that run your boards and mentions.
6 min read
Tale ships automations out of the box: three that turn a mailbox into a shared inbox, one bundle that resolves GitHub issues end to end, a set of sync and upkeep templates you install when you need them, and the pre-installed packs that run task boards and mentions for every organization. Editors and Members use whatever an installed automation adds — an Inbox tab, a Backlog entry — without installing anything themselves; installing is an Owner/Admin/Developer action covered on Browse and install. This page names what each one does and the integration it needs connected first.
Sync Gmail, Outlook, and email over IMAP
Sync Gmail emails, Sync Outlook emails, and Sync emails via SMTP/IMAP are the same automation three times over, one per mailbox kind: each requires exactly the integration its name says, each installs the same channel-agnostic Inbox builtin view, and each carries the mail-sync workflow that pulls the mailbox into conversations on a schedule (every six hours out of the box — tighten it on the automation's Triggers tab). An organization that receives mail on more than one kind of mailbox installs more than one of these; each Inbox only shows its own mailbox's traffic.
| Automation | Requires | Mailbox |
|---|---|---|
| Sync Gmail emails | Gmail | A Gmail mailbox |
| Sync Outlook emails | Outlook | A Microsoft Outlook mailbox |
| Sync emails via SMTP/IMAP | IMAP/SMTP | Any private mailbox over IMAP and SMTP |
The Inbox tab
Every one of the three opens on its Inbox tab: four sub-tabs — Open, Closed, Spam, Archived — each a split view with the conversation list on the left and the selected thread on the right. Opening a conversation fills the right pane with its full message history; until you pick one, the pane reads Select a conversation to view details.
The composer sits under the thread on Open — replies belong to active conversations, so the other three tabs are read-only. Write in Type a message and click Send; the reply goes out through the mailbox the conversation arrived on, with the recipient and subject line derived from the thread — there's nothing to address by hand. Improve rewrites your draft with AI before you send it. On the IMAP automation, replies sent from the mailbox itself — from any mail client — sync into the conversation too, ordered with the rest of the thread.
The thread header carries the status verbs for whichever conversation is selected — Close conversation and Mark as spam on an open thread, Reopen conversation on a closed or archived one, Not spam and the destructive Delete on spam. Selecting several rows in the list surfaces the same verbs as bulk actions.
Resolve GitHub issues
Resolve GitHub issues is a bundle, not a single automation: installing it runs one aggregated wizard that installs four hidden automations at once, bound to the project you choose, and requires the GitHub integration. Each member does one stage of the loop. Triage GitHub issues scores a repository's open issues on a schedule and proposes the actionable ones onto the project's Backlog — titled #<number> <title>, labelled to match GitHub, and left for a human to review. Sync GitHub issues closes a task the moment its GitHub issue closes, whether the resolve chain merged the fix or a human closed the issue directly on GitHub — it only closes, never creates or reopens a task. Create GitHub pull requests ships the PR Creator agent: once a human Starts a proposed task, it clones the repository, opens or adopts the pull request for the issue, implements the fix, verifies it against the project's own tests, and waits for CI to go green. Review GitHub pull requests ships the PR Reviewer agent: it re-tests the PR Creator's branch, confirms CI, and a toolless judge decides mergeability — approved parks the task at In review for a human to merge on GitHub; not approved sends it back to the PR Creator with feedback, up to a small rework cap.
A human stays in the loop at two points: starting a proposed task off the Backlog, and merging the pull request on GitHub itself — nothing in the bundle merges on your behalf.
Sync and upkeep templates
Eight more automations sit in the catalog for the moments you need them. Each is a single workflow you install and then point at your data — the sync ones ask for their source on the schedule they create, and every one is editable afterwards on the automation's Editor tab.
| Automation | Requires | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Sync Confluence pages | Confluence | Imports a Confluence space's pages into the knowledge library on a schedule |
| Sync Google Drive files | Google Drive | Imports a Drive folder's documents into the knowledge library |
| Sync Shopify customers | Shopify | Imports the shop's customers into the organization's customer records |
| Sync Shopify products | Shopify | Imports the shop's product catalog into the organization's product records |
| Analyze product relationships | — | Scans the product catalog and records accessories, variants, and complements |
| Index documents for retrieval | — | Indexes newly uploaded documents so agents can search and cite them |
| Archive idle conversations | — | Closes out conversations that sat quiet past their idle window |
| Notify members on inbound messages | — | Alerts members the moment a new inbound message lands in an open conversation |
The pre-installed packs
The plumbing that runs every organization's boards ships as automations too — installed automatically at creation, hidden from the catalog, and visible on the Installed tab like anything else. The task pack runs an assigned agent the moment a task lands on it, triages unassigned work, reacts to @-mentions, routes finished work through review, sweeps stale runs, enforces SLAs, and keeps dependent tasks, subtasks, and archives moving; its siblings answer discussion mentions and keep OneDrive files synced. Each is a normal automation — open one to read its workflow on the Editor tab, watch it under Executions, or switch off a trigger under Triggers; an uninstall sticks and is never re-installed behind your back.
Where this fits
The inbox automations, the Resolve GitHub issues bundle, and the sync templates are what ships today; a private automation your organization builds or uploads shows up in the same catalog next to them. Browse and install covers the catalog mechanics; Project Backlog is the next read for what happens to a task after Triage proposes it.