add-outlook

Status: Available in-repo as packages/mcp-outlook/ (@deus-ai/outlook-mcp). The published npm package is not out yet, so the channel factory falls back to the in-repo build at packages/mcp-outlook/dist/index.js — you just build it locally (below).

Outlook is the email-channel analog of Gmail, built on the Microsoft Graph API. It polls the inbox for unread mail, forwards each conversation to the agent, and replies in-thread. It also exposes tools (read, send, search, draft).

Phase 1: Pre-flight

Ask the user

Use AskUserQuestion:

AskUserQuestion: Should incoming emails be able to trigger the agent?

• Yes — Full channel mode: the agent listens on the Outlook inbox and responds to incoming emails automatically.
• No — Tool-only: the agent gets full Outlook tools (read, send, search, draft) but won't monitor the inbox. No channel code is added.

Phase 2: Setup

Azure AD app registration

Tell the user:

I need you to register an Azure AD application for Microsoft Graph:

1. Open https://portal.azure.com → Microsoft Entra ID → App registrations → New registration. Copy the Application (client) ID and Directory (tenant) ID.
2. Go to API permissions → Add a permission → Microsoft Graph → Delegated permissions, and add: Mail.Read, Mail.Send, Mail.ReadWrite, offline_access, User.Read. Click Grant admin consent (or have a tenant admin grant it).
3. Under Authentication → Advanced settings, enable Allow public client flows (required for the device-code sign-in).

Tell me the Application (client) ID and Directory (tenant) ID, or paste the values here.

Auth is delegated, device-code only (a user signs in once). The confidential (clientSecret / app-only) flow is not supported.

Store the app credentials (no personal values belong in this skill — these go in the user's local config):

mkdir -p ~/.outlook-mcp
# Written by setup: ~/.outlook-mcp/app-credentials.json
#   { "clientId": "...", "tenantId": "..." }

Build the package + sign in

The published npm package is not out yet, so build the in-repo package and run a one-time device-code sign-in:

cd packages/mcp-outlook && npm install && npm run build && cd ../..
node packages/mcp-outlook/dist/index.js auth

auth prints a URL and a short code — open the URL, sign in to your Microsoft 365 account, enter the code, and approve the requested mail permissions. It caches the token to ~/.outlook-mcp/token.json (with a refresh token so it renews without re-prompting). Verify with ls ~/.outlook-mcp/token.json.

The channel auto-enables once app-credentials.json + token.json are present. Restart the service so the host picks up the channel:

# macOS
launchctl kickstart -k gui/$(id -u)/com.deus
# Linux (systemd)
sudo systemctl restart deus

Verify

Smoke test

npx tsx setup/index.ts --step smoke-test -- --channel outlook

The smoke test checks: service running, registered group exists, DB write/read works, and channel connection appears in logs.

If it passes, tell the user "Outlook channel is working." Then, for channel mode, ask them to send a test email:

Send a test email to your connected Outlook account to confirm real-time delivery. Check logs/deus.log for processing confirmation.

Troubleshooting

Outlook connection not responding

Test the Graph token directly:

curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $(jq -r .accessToken ~/.outlook-mcp/token.json)" \
  "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/me" | jq '{displayName, mail, userPrincipalName}'

A 200 with your account details means the token is valid; a 401 means it expired or lacks scope.

OAuth token expired

Re-authorize (the refresh token should renew automatically; force a fresh sign-in if it doesn't):

rm ~/.outlook-mcp/token.json
# re-run the device-code authorization

"insufficient privileges" / missing scope

1. In API permissions, confirm Mail.Read, Mail.Send, Mail.ReadWrite, offline_access, and User.Read are present.
2. Click Grant admin consent — delegated permissions on some tenants require admin approval.
3. Delete ~/.outlook-mcp/token.json and re-authorize so the new scopes are included in the token.

Channel not connecting

• The Outlook MCP server runs host-side (spawned by the host process via stdio), so it reads ~/.outlook-mcp/ directly — there is no container mount.
• Confirm the package is built: ls packages/mcp-outlook/dist/index.js.
• Confirm both files exist: ls ~/.outlook-mcp/app-credentials.json ~/.outlook-mcp/token.json.
• Check logs/deus.log for Outlook channel connected / connect errors.

Emails not being detected (Channel mode only)

• By default, the channel polls unread inbox messages: /me/mailFolders/Inbox/messages?$filter=isRead eq false.
• Check logs/deus.log for Graph polling errors (throttling returns HTTP 429 with a Retry-After header).

Known limitation

• First reply to a pre-existing thread is skipped. The reply target (a message id in the conversation) is cached only when the channel sees an inbound message during a poll. A reply to a thread that arrived before the channel started has no stored target, so it is logged and skipped rather than misdelivered.