YouOS

API key required

YouOS — local-first personal email copilot that learns your writing style from Gmail, Google Docs, and WhatsApp exports, then drafts replies in your voice. Use for drafting replies, reviewing how you usually respond, and running a self-improving personal communication workflow.

Install

openclaw skills install youos

YouOS — Personal Email Copilot

YouOS is a full local Python app (not an instruction-only snippet). It drafts email replies in your style, grounded in your real past replies.

Naming: YouOS is the shared app/package. During setup it personalizes its name to <First>OS (e.g. BaherOS) for your local instance at YOUOS_DATA_DIR=~/YouOS-Instances/<you>/ — that's a local config/data directory, not a fork of the project.

Safety & impact

Read these before installing:

Sensitive data ingested locally. YouOS reads your Gmail (sent + threads), Google Docs, and optional WhatsApp exports into a local SQLite DB. This stays on your machine, but it is sensitive content — protect the data directory (YOUOS_DATA_DIR/var/youos.db) accordingly.
Installation runs local package code. ./scripts/install.sh builds a .venv and installs this repository — review the source (especially scripts/install.sh, pyproject.toml, app/) before running.
Background persistence is opt-in. YouOS only runs as a launchd LaunchAgent if you explicitly run youos service install. Foreground youos serve does not persist.
Scheduled/nightly runs are opt-in. Ingestion, fine-tuning, and autoresearch only run automatically if you've enabled the nightly pipeline; youos improve is the manual equivalent.
External model fallback is optional. Drafting is on-device by default. Cloud fallback only fires if review.draft_model or model.fallback is set to a cloud model — set model.fallback: none and review.draft_model: local for strict local-only operation.

Install and runtime model

Install is manual: run ./scripts/install.sh (Python 3.11+) — it creates a .venv, installs YouOS, sets up the on-device model (MLX) on Apple Silicon, and runs the doctor
Note: this executes local package install code from this repository; review source before installing
Requires python3 (3.11+) and a Google ingestion backend — gog (default), gws, or native (see Credentials)
Drafts run on your fine-tuned local model by default (Qwen + your LoRA, served warm); the cloud is only a cold-start before your model is trained, or a fallback
Optional runtime path override: YOUOS_DATA_DIR

Credentials and configuration

Required: a Google ingestion backend for Gmail/Docs — gog (default), gws, or native (youos[google] + OAuth); set ingestion.google_backend
Optional: Claude CLI/API credentials only for the cold-start/fallback (review.draft_model / model.fallback)
For strict local-only: set review.draft_model: local and model.fallback: none

Trigger phrases

"draft a reply to this email"
"write this email for me"
"how would I respond to this"
"what would I say to"
"help me reply"
"draft in my style"
"youos"
"my email copilot"
"email copilot"
"my copilot"
"generate a draft"
"reply draft" / "email draft" / "draft reply"
"compose reply"
"write a response"
"email response"
"how do I usually reply to"
"reply to this"
"help me write"
"write an email"
"compose a response"
"email assistant"
"my writing style"
"train on my emails"

Requirements

Apple Silicon Mac (M1/M2/M3/M4) with 8GB+ RAM (16GB recommended) — the local model runs on MLX (./scripts/install.sh sets it up)
Python 3.11+
A Google ingestion backend for Gmail/Docs: gog CLI (default), Google's gws CLI, or the native Google API (youos[google] + OAuth)
~5GB free disk space
Run the UI locally by default (do not expose publicly unless intentionally secured)

Quick start

# Install (creates .venv, installs YouOS + MLX on Apple Silicon, runs the doctor)
cd youos
./scripts/install.sh
source .venv/bin/activate

# Check system requirements (Python, Google backend, MLX, disk space, etc.)
youos doctor

# Run setup wizard (identity, ingestion, style analysis) — or open /welcome in the browser
youos setup

# Draft a reply (uses your local fine-tuned model by default)
youos draft "paste inbound email here"
youos draft --sender john@company.com "email text"

# Run the web UI (then open /feedback, /stats, /settings, /about)
youos serve
youos service install     # or run it as a background service (starts at login)

# Compare the backends on YOUR mail, ranked by how closely each sounds like you
youos compare-models --limit 30 --semantic

# Warm local-model server (loaded once for fast drafting)
youos model server status

# Check status / view stats
youos status
youos stats

# Run the nightly pipeline manually (add --verbose for step-by-step output)
youos improve --verbose

# Golden benchmark (10 curated cases)
youos eval --golden

# Full corpus health report (pairs, quality scores, top senders)
youos corpus

# Ingest a WhatsApp chat export (optional — augments your corpus)
youos ingest --whatsapp ~/Downloads/WhatsApp-Chat.txt

# Add a sender note (immediately rebuilds their profile)
youos note john@company.com "integration partner, prefers bullet points"

# Submit a feedback pair directly from the terminal
youos feedback --inbound "email text" --reply "your reply" --rating 4

# Teardown (remove all data, keep code)
youos teardown

Drafting inside Gmail

Install the YouOS browser extension (Chrome/Edge/Brave) — it lives in the repo's extension/ folder (homepage), and the web UI's Gmail page has one-click "Load unpacked" steps. The extension adds a panel to Gmail:

Open an email → click the teal ✉ launcher → the panel opens
Sender + message auto-detected; add an instruction or pick a tone
Click Generate → drafted in your voice; Insert into Gmail drops it in the reply box
Rate 1–5 and Submit feedback — YouOS learns from it, same as the Review Queue

A bookmarklet remains as a no-install fallback (it can break when Gmail changes its markup; the extension doesn't).

How it works

Ingests Gmail, Google Docs, WhatsApp exports — plus organic pairs from emails you sent without YouOS
Builds a retrieval index — BM25 + query expansion + semantic (LRU-cached) + multi-intent + per-account isolation + same-thread 2× + subject + topic signals + sender-type boosts + quality scores + relative confidence thresholds
When you ask for a draft: detects multi-intent, retrieves score-ranked thread-deduplicated exemplars (reply preserved 600 chars, inbound trimmed 400), prompt token budget enforced; generates with per-mode persona + first-name greeting on your fine-tuned local model by default (Qwen + your LoRA, served warm via mlx_lm.server so it's fast and on-device). The cloud is only a cold-start (before your model is trained) or a fallback; a per-draft model badge + the Stats "Drafting with" row always show which model actually ran
Every email you review trains the model further — curriculum-ordered, quality-filtered, training pairs deduplicated by similarity, DPO pairs supported; nightly pipeline skips steps when data insufficient
Nightly: ingests + organic pairs, incremental persona re-analysis (90-day weighted, EWMA avg words, p25/p75 confidence intervals), fine-tunes (with golden eval check), runs autoresearch on rotating benchmark sample
Autoresearch benchmarks rotate weekly (seeded re-sample) — prevents overfitting to fixed test cases; golden eval composite tracked in pipeline log
Style drift detection: Stats dashboard flags when your writing patterns shift significantly
Your best-rated, least-edited replies surface higher in future retrievals via quality scoring
Sender profiles track reply-time patterns and topics; youos note immediately rebuilds that contact's profile
Submit feedback from terminal: youos feedback --inbound "..." --reply "..." --rating 4
Setup wizard asks for internal domains — accurate sender classification from day one
Facts store (/api/facts) — save context about contacts, projects, and preferences; facts are injected into generation prompts automatically for context-aware drafts
Auto fact extraction — sender notes and feedback notes are parsed automatically on save using 15+ rule patterns (preferences, timezone, schedule, sign-offs, roles, relationships, project metadata); negation-aware with confidence scoring; LLM (Claude CLI) fallback for unstructured notes; fact deduplication/merging on upsert
Measure it, don't guess — youos compare-models drafts your held-out replies under each backend and scores them against what you actually wrote (voice-match), so you can verify the local fine-tuned model beats the cloud on your mail
Readiness gate — a soft "preparing your voice model" banner holds you back from relying on drafts until your model is trained and benchmarked (with a "Run benchmark now" action); drafting still works meanwhile
Becomes your OS — during setup the app personalizes its name from your first name (e.g. Baher → BaherOS)

Security & privacy notes

Gmail/Docs ingestion uses your configured Google backend's auth (gog / gws / native OAuth); review connected accounts before ingestion
Drafting is on-device by default; the cloud is only the cold-start/fallback. If it's used (review.draft_model: claude or model.fallback: claude), inbound email/context is sent to Claude for that draft
For strict local-only operation, set review.draft_model: local and model.fallback: none in youos_config.yaml
Data location defaults to local instance paths under YOUOS_DATA_DIR (e.g. ~/YouOS-Instances/<you>/), or the repo's var/
Review PRIVACY.md before first ingestion/deployment

Provenance

Source/homepage: https://github.com/DrBaher/youos
This skill bundles a full local Python app and is intended for explicit local install/review before use.