Automated News Digest & Email Reporter Agent

What This Agent Does

This intelligent automation agent transforms your Google Alerts into actionable intelligence by automatically fetching alert emails, extracting linked articles, scraping their full content, and using AI to generate concise summaries. Instead of manually clicking through dozens of Google Alert emails and reading lengthy articles, you'll receive a single, beautifully formatted digest email containing AI-powered summaries of all your alerts.

Key benefits include:

• Save 2-3 hours weekly by eliminating manual article reading and note-taking
• Never miss important industry updates with automated daily or weekly digests
• Get AI-powered insights that extract key points from lengthy articles in seconds
• Maintain a clean inbox as processed alerts are automatically marked as read

Perfect use cases: Competitive intelligence monitoring, industry trend tracking, brand mention analysis, research topic monitoring, and staying current with multiple interest areas without information overload.

Who Is It For

This agent is ideal for:

• Marketing professionals tracking competitor activities, industry trends, and brand mentions across the web
• Researchers and analysts monitoring specific topics, technologies, or market developments
• Business owners keeping tabs on their industry, competitors, and customer sentiment
• Content creators discovering trending topics and gathering research material efficiently
• Product managers staying informed about market changes, user feedback, and competitive features
• Anyone receiving multiple Google Alerts daily who wants to process them intelligently without the time commitment

Whether you're monitoring 5 or 50 different topics, this agent scales to handle your information needs while dramatically reducing the time you spend on research and monitoring.

Required Integrations

Gmail

Why it's needed: This integration retrieves your Google Alert emails, extracts their content, sends you the final digest, and marks processed alerts as read to keep your inbox organized.

Setup steps:

1. Navigate to Integrations in your TaskAGI dashboard
2. Click Add Integration and select Gmail
3. Click Connect to Gmail to initiate OAuth authentication
4. Select the Google account that receives your Google Alerts
5. Review and accept the permission requests (read, send, and modify emails)
6. Confirm the connection is active with a green status indicator

Required permissions:

• gmail.readonly - To search and read Google Alert emails
• gmail.send - To send the digest email to yourself
• gmail.modify - To mark processed alerts as read

Configuration notes: Ensure you're connecting the Gmail account where Google Alerts are delivered. If you use multiple Google accounts, verify you're authenticating with the correct one.

Anthropic (Claude AI)

Why it's needed: This integration powers the AI summarization engine that analyzes article content and generates concise, insightful summaries using Claude's advanced language model.

Setup steps:

1. Visit console.anthropic.com and create an account or sign in
2. Navigate to API Keys in the Anthropic Console
3. Click Create Key and give it a descriptive name like "TaskAGI Google Alerts"
4. Copy the API key immediately (it won't be shown again)
5. Return to TaskAGI and go to Integrations
6. Click Add Integration and select Anthropic
7. Paste your API key into the API Key field
8. Click Save and verify the connection status shows as active

Pricing considerations: Anthropic charges per token used. This workflow uses the Claude Sonnet 4 model, which offers excellent quality at moderate cost. Expect approximately $0.02-0.05 per digest depending on article length and quantity. Monitor your usage in the Anthropic Console.

Model selection: The workflow is configured with claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929, which provides the best balance of speed, accuracy, and cost for content summarization tasks.

Configuration Steps

Step 1: Configure Google Alert Search

Node: Get Google Alerts

This node searches your Gmail for unread Google Alert emails.

1. Set Search Query to: from:googlealerts-noreply@google.com is:unread
2. Adjust Max Results to control batch size (recommended: 20 for daily processing, 50 for weekly)
3. Leave Label IDs empty unless you filter alerts to a specific label

Pro tip: If you want to process only specific alerts, create a Gmail filter that applies a label to certain Google Alerts, then reference that label ID here.

Step 2: Prepare Message IDs

Node: Prepare Message IDs

This function node extracts email IDs for processing. The code is pre-configured, but verify it contains:

return nodes.4039.messages.map(msg => msg.id);

This transforms the Gmail search results into a simple array of message IDs for the loop.

Step 3: Loop Through Emails

Node: Loop: Fetch Each Email

Configure the loop to process each alert email:

1. Set Items to: [[nodes.4040.output]] (the array of message IDs)
2. Batch Size: 1 (process one email at a time)
3. Enable Continue on Error to prevent one failed email from stopping the entire workflow

Step 4: Extract Email Content

Node: Get Email Content

1. Set Message ID to: [[nodes.4041.item]] (the current loop item)
2. Format: Select full to retrieve complete email content including HTML

Step 5: Extract Links from Emails

Node: Extract Links from Emails

This function extracts article URLs from the email body. The pre-configured code uses regex to find all links. Verify it includes logic to:

• Parse HTML content from the email
• Extract href attributes from anchor tags
• Filter out Google redirect URLs
• Return clean article URLs

Step 6: Loop Through Links

Node: Loop: Process Each Link

1. Set Items to: [[nodes.4044.output]] (extracted links array)
2. Batch Size: 1
3. Enable Continue on Error (some links may be inaccessible)

Step 7: Fetch Article Content

Node: Fetch Article Content

Configure the HTTP request to scrape articles:

1. URL: [[nodes.4045.item]] (current link from loop)
2. Method: GET
3. Headers: Add User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; TaskAGI/1.0) to avoid bot blocking
4. Timeout: 30000 milliseconds (30 seconds)
5. Follow Redirects: Enable

Step 8: Clean Article HTML

Node: Clean Article HTML

This function strips HTML tags and extracts readable text. Ensure it:

• Removes script and style tags
• Converts HTML entities to text
• Strips excessive whitespace
• Limits content to approximately 4000 characters (to stay within AI token limits)

Step 9: AI Summarization

Node: AI: Summarize Article

Configure Claude to generate summaries:

1. Model: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929 (pre-selected)
2. System Prompt:

You are an expert in content analysis and data structuring. Analyze articles and provide concise, actionable summaries.

3. User Message:

Summarize this article in 2-3 sentences, focusing on key insights and actionable information:

[[nodes.4047.cleanedText]]

4. Max Tokens: 300 (sufficient for concise summaries)
5. Temperature: 0.3 (lower = more focused and consistent)

Step 10: Map Summary Data

Node: Map Summary Data

This node structures the summary data for the report:

1. Configure to output an object with:
   • url: [[nodes.4045.item]]
   • summary: [[nodes.4048.content[0].text]]
   • title: Extract from email or article metadata

Step 11: Create HTML Report

Node: Create HTML Report

This function compiles all summaries into an HTML email. The code should:

• Loop through all collected summaries
• Format each as an HTML section with title, link, and summary
• Apply basic styling for readability
• Include a header with date and total article count

Step 12: Send Digest Email

Node: Send Digest Email

Configure your digest delivery:

1. To: Replace youremail@yourdomain.com with your actual email address
2. Subject: Customize as desired (e.g., "Daily Google Alerts Digest - [DATE]")
3. Body: [[nodes.4049.htmlEmailBody]]
4. Body Type: Select HTML

Step 13: Mark Alerts as Read

Node: Loop: Mark Emails Read

1. Items: [[nodes.4040.output]] (original message IDs)
2. Batch Size: 5 (mark multiple at once for efficiency)

Node: Mark as Read

1. Message ID: [[nodes.4050.item]]
2. Action: Mark as read

Testing Your Agent

Initial Test Run

1. Ensure you have unread Google Alerts in your inbox (at least 2-3 for meaningful testing)
2. Click Test Workflow in the TaskAGI editor
3. Monitor the execution panel as each node processes
4. Expected duration: 2-5 minutes depending on the number of alerts

Verification Checklist

After Gmail search (Node: Get Google Alerts):

• ✅ Verify the node found your unread alerts
• ✅ Check the output shows message IDs
• ✅ Confirm the count matches your expectations

After link extraction (Node: Extract Links):

• ✅ Review the extracted URLs
• ✅ Ensure they're article links, not Google redirect URLs
• ✅ Verify no broken or malformed URLs

After AI summarization (Node: AI: Summarize Article):

• ✅ Read a few summaries for quality and relevance
• ✅ Confirm summaries are concise (2-3 sentences)
• ✅ Check that key information is captured

After digest email (Node: Send Digest Email):

• ✅ Check your inbox for the digest email
• ✅ Verify HTML formatting displays correctly
• ✅ Click a few links to ensure they work
• ✅ Confirm all processed alerts appear in the digest

After cleanup (Node: Mark as Read):

• ✅ Return to Gmail and verify alerts are marked as read
• ✅ Ensure no alerts were missed or duplicated

Success Indicators

• Execution completes without errors (or only minor errors for inaccessible links)
• Digest email arrives within 5 minutes of workflow completion
• Summaries are coherent and relevant to the article content
• All links in the digest are clickable and lead to the correct articles
• Original alerts are marked as read in Gmail

Troubleshooting

"No messages found" Error

Cause: No unread Google Alerts in your inbox, or incorrect search query.

Solutions:

• Verify you have unread emails from googlealerts-noreply@google.com
• Check the Gmail search query syntax in the first node
• Ensure the connected Gmail account is correct
• Test the search query directly in Gmail to confirm it returns results

"Failed to fetch article content" Errors

Cause: Some websites block automated scraping or require authentication.

Solutions:

• This is expected for some sites; the workflow continues with other articles
• If many articles fail, add more realistic headers to the HTTP request node
• Consider adding a delay between requests (use a delay node in the loop)
• Some paywalled content cannot be accessed; this is a limitation

AI Summaries Are Too Long or Too Short

Cause: Token limits or prompt configuration.

Solutions:

• Adjust Max Tokens in the AI node (increase for longer, decrease for shorter)
• Refine the prompt to be more specific about desired length
• Modify the Temperature setting (lower = more consistent length)

Digest Email Not Arriving

Cause: Email delivery issues or incorrect recipient address.

Solutions:

• Verify the To field contains a valid email address
• Check your spam/junk folder
• Confirm the Gmail integration has send permissions
• Review the node execution log for specific error messages

"Rate limit exceeded" from Anthropic

Cause: Too many API requests in a short period.

Solutions:

• Reduce the Max Results in the Gmail search node
• Add a delay node within the article processing loop
• Upgrade your Anthropic API tier for higher rate limits
• Process alerts less frequently (e.g., weekly instead of daily)

Workflow Times Out

Cause: Processing too many alerts at once.

Solutions:

• Reduce Max Results to 10-20 alerts per run
• Increase timeout settings in HTTP request nodes
• Run the workflow more frequently with smaller batches
• Consider splitting into multiple workflows for different alert categories

Next Steps

After Successful Setup

1. Schedule the workflow to run automatically:

   • Daily at 8 AM for morning briefings
   • Weekly on Monday mornings for weekend catch-up
   • Multiple times daily if you receive high-volume alerts

2. Customize your digest format:

   • Add your company logo to the HTML template
   • Include additional metadata (publish date, source domain)
   • Group summaries by topic or alert category
   • Add a table of contents for longer digests

3. Optimize alert management:

   • Review which Google Alerts provide the most value
   • Adjust alert frequency in Google Alerts settings
   • Create Gmail filters to organize alerts by priority

Advanced Optimization Tips

Improve summary quality:

• Experiment with different Claude models (Opus for highest quality, Haiku for speed/cost)
• Refine the AI prompt to focus on specific aspects (e.g., "focus on competitive insights")
• Add sentiment analysis to flag positive/negative mentions

Enhance data extraction:

• Use article metadata extraction libraries for better titles and authors
• Implement duplicate detection to avoid summarizing the same article twice
• Add keyword highlighting to emphasize important terms

Scale your monitoring:

• Create separate workflows for different alert categories
• Build a database of summaries for long-term trend analysis
• Integrate with Slack or Teams for team-wide distribution
• Add a dashboard visualization of alert trends over time

Cost optimization:

• Cache article content to avoid re-scraping
• Use cheaper AI models for less critical summaries
• Batch process alerts weekly instead of daily
• Filter out low-value sources before AI processing

Monitoring and Maintenance

• Review your digest weekly to ensure quality remains high
• Monitor Anthropic costs in their console dashboard
• Update the User-Agent if websites start blocking requests
• Refresh Gmail authentication if it expires (typically every 6-12 months)

With this agent running smoothly, you'll transform information overload into actionable intelligence, saving hours each week while staying perfectly informed about what matters most to you and your business.