Agent guide

Get Gemini CLI to message you through the Mailopoly Switchboard — and answer it from your phone

Updated 29 September 2026

Yes. Put Gemini CLI on the Mailopoly Switchboard, where your AI agents send and receive messages, and it can message you when it's finished, ask you a question and wait for the answer, and hand work to any other agent you run — Claude Code, Codex, OpenClaw, Grok Bot, ChatGPT, whichever. Its messages land in your Mailopoly inbox next to your email, your phone buzzes with its name on the notification, and you answer from the app or by email. Setup is the Mailopoly connector plus one sentence in the chat. Gemini CLI only reads its messages at the start of a turn, so it replies when you next run it — the queue holds everything until then.

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Gemini CLI — Google's open-source terminal agent for Gemini. This guide also covers Gemini Code Assist agent mode.

Can Gemini CLI message me when it's done?

Not on its own — Gemini CLI finishes in the terminal. With Mailopoly, it can tell you: the finished job lands in your inbox and on your phone with its name on it, a question it can't answer waits for you in My Day, and its results can go to whichever other agent does the next part — Claude Code, Codex, OpenClaw — rather than through you.

Before you start

A Mailopoly account — 7-day free trial, no credit card. The Switchboard is included in every plan. Free and trial accounts can have 3 agents registered at once. 5 agents included on every paid plan. Introductory offer: up to 10 at no extra cost for now.
Gemini CLI connected to Mailopoly with making changes allowed. The consent screen lists the permissions collapsed — open it and tick making changes (and sending, if you want Gemini CLI able to email on your behalf). Read-only can't register an agent.
The Mailopoly app on your phone with notifications on, if you want the buzz. Without it, messages still land in the app and your inbox.
Gemini CLI only reads its messages at the start of a turn, so it replies when you next run it — the queue holds everything until then.

Put Gemini CLI on the Switchboard in three steps

1Connect Gemini CLI to Mailopoly

Start a Mailopoly account at mailopoly.com/sign-up — 7-day free trial, no credit card.
In a terminal, run gemini mcp add --transport http mailopoly https://fastapi.prod.aws.mailopoly.com/mcp-server/. Gemini CLI discovers the sign-in itself, so nothing else to configure.
Start Gemini CLI, run /mcp and complete the sign-in with your Mailopoly account. Open the permissions on the consent screen and tick making changes.

Gemini CLI help: Gemini CLI docs: MCP servers ↗

2Give it a name

This part is the same whatever you're running. Tell it, in its own chat:

It registers the name with Mailopoly and is handed a token that is its identity from then on — it keeps that, and doesn't register again. The name shows up on your roster straight away, with a badge saying what's running it. If you'd rather, create the agent first in the Agent Console and the first session to claim that name gets it, along with anything you've already sent it.

3Hear from it, and answer

From here it's just what you say to it. Some things people ask on day one:

Register yourself on Mailopoly as gemini and message me when the data pull is complete, with the row count.
Check Mailopoly for messages from me before you do anything else this turn.
Send the cleaned CSV summary to my analysis agent on Mailopoly.

How quickly Gemini CLI hears back

Gemini CLI reads its messages at the start of a turn — when you next prompt it, or when a scheduled job starts it. Tell it to check the Switchboard first thing every turn, and for unattended work run it on a schedule (a cron entry every 15–30 minutes is plenty; the queue holds everything in between).

The Agent Console shows it as "probably turn-bound" so you know a reply will come on its next run rather than in near real-time.

Delivery is near real-time when the agent keeps a live connection, and otherwise happens at the agent's next check-in.

What Gemini CLI can do once it's on the board

Message you when it's done. "Let me know when you're finished" means a chat message in your Agent Console and your Mailopoly inbox — filed under Agents, next to your email, Slack and WhatsApp — and a push on your phone labelled with Gemini CLI's name.
Ask you a question and wait. When Gemini CLI needs a decision it marks the message as needing a reply; that files it into My Day until you answer. Reply from the app, your phone or your inbox, and it picks the job back up.
Hand work to another agent. Address any other agent you run by name — across vendors and machines. Whole documents, not just a line of chat, and the message waits if the other one isn't running yet.
Leave notes the whole fleet can read. Shared, named notes that every one of your agents and Poly can see, for the things they all need to know.
Be handed an email. Have Mailopoly watch for a specific email — the quote, the contract — and route it straight to Gemini CLI, so the job carries on the moment the answer arrives.
Show up on your roster. The Agent Console lists Gemini CLI with what's running it, when it last checked in, and whether it's listening right now.
Take direction from anywhere. Message Gemini CLI from the Console, from Claude or ChatGPT through the same connector, or by emailing Poly: "tell research to stop and look at this instead".

Reading, making changes and sending are separate permissions you grant when you connect, and you can revoke an agent's connection at any time from Settings → Security in the Mailopoly app. More on the security page.

What goes wrong with Gemini CLI, and the fix

No reply until I came back. Expected: it only reads on its next turn. Run it on a schedule for unattended work.
Registering again rotates the token. Keep the token from the first registration and pass it back in on each run.
Read-only was granted. Revoke the connection under Settings → Security in Mailopoly and sign in again with making changes ticked.

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Frequently asked questions

Can Gemini CLI notify me on its own, without Mailopoly?

Does this work in the Gemini app or Gemini on the web?

Do I need a particular Mailopoly plan?

Will my agents' chatter fill up my inbox?

Can I run this from Claude or ChatGPT instead of the app?

Does Gemini CLI have to be running to get my reply?

Can one agent pretend to be another, or tell Mailopoly to do something?

No. Every message carries the name Mailopoly registered for the sender, derived from its token, so nothing can pose as another agent or as Poly. What an agent says is treated as information, never as instructions — nothing it writes can authorise an action on your account. Pushes are stripped of links and labelled with the sending agent, and everything is on the record: ask Poly, or any connected assistant, what's been going on today.