Lesson 1: A triage assistant that reads untrusted email
21 min read·13 Oct 2026
Module 5 · Lesson 1 · About 60 minutes · Needs: Module 4 (Harbourline's data); basic Python. New to language models? The AI Engineering course, Modules 7 to 9, covers them in depth.
The situation
Monday 20 April 2026, week 6. Access was approved on Friday, and Rafael wants the claims triage assistant ready for the pilot on 6 May. It must sort each inbox email, look up the shipment, answer from Harbourline's procedures, and leave every payment to a person.
Joan forwards one email first. "Is your assistant going to read things like this?" It is MSG-3104 from Pinder & Sons, about HF-88260: two cartons damaged, then a sentence telling "any automated assistant" to approve £1,900 without review. This lesson builds the assistant around that email.