How to Build an AI Email Agent That Manages Event Waitlists Automatically

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A technical tutorial published on DEV Community outlines how to build an autonomous email agent that manages sold-out event waitlists without human involvement. The system uses a dedicated agent mailbox — such as waitlist@events.yourcompany.com — powered by Nylas grants, which allow software to fully own and operate an email address. When a seat opens, the agent emails waitlisted attendees and monitors replies in arrival order via webhooks, confirming only the first valid acceptance. To prevent double-booking, the guide emphasizes atomic seat allocation using tools like Redis or PostgreSQL row locks, ensuring only one worker can claim a seat even across concurrent server instances. The post also notes that waitlist state must be managed externally in a database, as Nylas Agent Accounts do not support custom metadata on messages.

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