nc://channel-pidgeon

Pidgeon: an email address of its own for the agent. A Nodecode rewrite of pidgeon-ai/pidgeon-python by pidgeon-ai.

Pidgeon gives an agent an inbox at pidgeon.ai. Mail sent to that address arrives in Pidgeon's event log; this cell reads the log every few seconds, and each email becomes a conversation in its own thread. The agent's answer goes back as a reply in the same thread, in plain text. Nothing needs a public address or an open port: the poll reaches out, and no one reaches in.

Two things are decided before a piece of mail becomes a turn, because anyone can send email:

• mail the Pidgeon Firewall flags as prompt injection is held, not delivered (set suspicious to deliver to pass it with a warning), and
• mail whose From did not pass DMARC is held, because a From is forgeable. allow_unauthenticated trusts it anyway.

The model is also told, on every answer, that instructions inside an email are the sender's words and not its own.

Get it

Tell the agent "add the pidgeon cell", or run nodecode add nc://nodecode-channel-pidgeon.

The channel kit that ships with Nodecode comes with it, and does the threads, sessions, cards and delivery; this folder contributes Pidgeon's API.

Set it up

1. Make a Pidgeon account and an address for the agent (not one of yours), at pidgeon.ai.
2. Create an API key that can read and send, at /app/developers/keys.
3. Keep the key in a file (mode 600) or an environment variable, never in the config.
4. Add a channels.pidgeon section to ~/.nodecode/config.jsonc; config.example.jsonc has every key. The least that works:

"channels": {
  "pidgeon": {
    "api_key_file": "~/.nodecode/secrets/pidgeon-key",
    "allowed_users": ["you@example.com"]
  }
}

At least one of allowed_users / addresses must be set: an email runs with full access to your machine, so the lane never starts open to everyone. Add your own address to owner as well, and the agent treats your instructions as standing policy rather than a stranger's request.

(nck:probe "pidgeon") reads the key and says which addresses it reaches and whether it may send, without spending a message.

Use it

Send an email to the agent's Pidgeon address. It answers in the thread. The next email in that thread continues the same conversation, so a long exchange stays one session rather than becoming a new one per message.

What it holds, and how to change it:

The lane starts reading from the moment it starts: mail already in the inbox when you turn the cell on is not answered as if it had just arrived, and a restart begins again from that moment. Only mail that comes in while the lane runs becomes a turn.

Answers are plain text with the Markdown markers taken out, and one email per turn: a progress line or a status card is not emailed, since each would be a separate message in someone's inbox.