---
phase: 01-foundation
plan: 02
subsystem: email
tags: [imap, aioimaplib, email-parsing, html2text, rfc822]

# Dependency graph
requires:
  - phase: 01-01
    provides: Email database models with encrypted credentials
provides:
  - IMAP connection service with authentication and folder listing
  - Email body parser for multipart MIME messages
  - Dependencies: aioimaplib and html2text
affects: [01-03, 01-04, email-sync, account-management]

# Tech tracking
tech-stack:
  added: [aioimaplib>=2.0.1, html2text>=2025.4.15]
  patterns: [async IMAP client, modern EmailMessage API, HTML-to-text conversion]

key-files:
  created:
    - blueprints/email/imap_service.py
    - blueprints/email/parser_service.py
  modified:
    - pyproject.toml

key-decisions:
  - "Use aioimaplib for async IMAP4_SSL operations"
  - "Prefer plain text over HTML for RAG indexing"
  - "Use logout() not close() for proper TCP cleanup"
  - "Modern EmailMessage API with email.policy.default"

patterns-established:
  - "IMAP connection lifecycle: connect → operate → logout in finally block"
  - "Email parsing: message_from_bytes with policy=default, get_body() for multipart handling"
  - "HTML conversion: html2text with ignore_links=False for context preservation"

# Metrics
duration: 13min
completed: 2026-02-08
---

# Phase 01 Plan 02: IMAP Connection & Email Parsing Summary

**Async IMAP client with aioimaplib for server authentication and folder listing, plus RFC822 email parser extracting text/HTML bodies using modern EmailMessage API**

## Performance

- **Duration:** 13 minutes
- **Started:** 2026-02-08T14:48:15Z
- **Completed:** 2026-02-08T15:01:33Z
- **Tasks:** 2/2
- **Files modified:** 3

## Accomplishments

- IMAP connection service with async authentication and proper cleanup
- Email body parser handling multipart MIME messages with text/HTML extraction
- Dependencies added to pyproject.toml (aioimaplib, html2text)
- Modern EmailMessage API usage with proper encoding handling
- HTML-to-text conversion when plain text unavailable

## Task Commits

Each task was committed atomically:

1. **Task 1: IMAP connection service** - `6e4ee6c` (feat)
2. **Task 2: Email body parser** - `e408427` (feat)

## Files Created/Modified

- `blueprints/email/imap_service.py` - IMAPService class with connect/list_folders/close methods
- `blueprints/email/parser_service.py` - parse_email_body function for RFC822 parsing
- `pyproject.toml` - Added aioimaplib>=2.0.1 and html2text>=2025.4.15

## Decisions Made

**1. IMAP Connection Lifecycle**
- **Decision:** Use `logout()` not `close()` for proper TCP cleanup
- **Rationale:** `close()` only closes the selected mailbox, `logout()` closes TCP connection
- **Impact:** Prevents connection leaks and quota exhaustion

**2. Email Body Preference**
- **Decision:** Prefer plain text over HTML for "preferred" field
- **Rationale:** Plain text has less boilerplate, better for RAG indexing
- **Alternative:** Always convert HTML to text
- **Outcome:** Use plain text when available, convert HTML only when needed

**3. Modern Email API**
- **Decision:** Use `email.policy.default` and `get_body()` method
- **Rationale:** Modern API handles encoding automatically, simplifies multipart handling
- **Alternative:** Legacy `Message.walk()` and `get_payload()`
- **Outcome:** Proper decoding, fewer encoding errors

## Deviations from Plan

None - plan executed exactly as written.

All tasks completed according to specification. No bugs discovered, no critical functionality missing, no architectural changes required.

## Issues Encountered

None - implementation followed research patterns directly.

The RESEARCH.md provided complete patterns for both IMAP connection and email parsing, eliminating guesswork and enabling straightforward implementation.

## User Setup Required

None - no external service configuration required.

Dependencies will be installed in Docker environment via pyproject.toml. No API keys or credentials needed at this phase.

## Next Phase Readiness

**Phase 2: Account Management** is ready to begin.

**Ready:**
- ✅ IMAP service can connect to mail servers
- ✅ Email parser can extract bodies from RFC822 messages
- ✅ Dependencies added to project
- ✅ Patterns established for async IMAP operations

**What Phase 2 needs:**
- Use IMAPService to test IMAP connections
- Use parse_email_body to extract email content during sync
- Import: `from blueprints.email.imap_service import IMAPService`
- Import: `from blueprints.email.parser_service import parse_email_body`

**No blockers or concerns.**

---
*Phase: 01-foundation*
*Completed: 2026-02-08*
