For someone who has never heard of RelayLink, the notification email is the product. It has to carry enough to act, nothing that would turn the mail into a tracking surface, and a different story for a first-time recipient than for someone who already has an inbox.
What every notification carries
- Who it is from — name and address as plain text
- The note — the sender's words
- The ask — with the kind of reply wanted and how urgent it is. Hidden for a direct reply, because the reply is the ask
- Whether it is a reply — "Reply from" rather than "Package from" when it continues a thread
- A link to the full briefing — the magic-link page
- Reply-To — so a reply by ordinary mail still lands on the thread
A direct reply's short summary is its note, so the mail does not repeat it.
First-time recipient vs account holder
If you do not yet have a RelayLink account, the mail includes a short orientation where an account holder would see assistant guidance: what RelayLink is, receiving is free, nothing to install, one link to the setup guide. No second link, no image, no tracking. The guide URL is in the text body too.
If you already have an account, that slot carries the line about asking your assistant — plus Open in Claude and Open in ChatGPT. One tap from the mail into a chat with the question already asked.
The prompt is the same in every message
Both Open links use one prompt: Check my RelayLink inbox. Not "did send me something?" Putting a stranger's chosen display name into a prompt the recipient's assistant acts on — one click, no approval — would break the same rule that makes every link in the mail RelayLink's own.
The URLs are therefore identical in every message. Nothing about the sender, the recipient, or the token appears in either link.
The two apps behave differently, and both are fine: Claude prefills the composer and waits for you to send; ChatGPT opens a chat and asks immediately. That is acceptable only because the prompt is one this product is happy to have asked without you typing it.
What the mail leaves out
No open tracking. No pixel, no remote font, no fetch that could report a read. They say they never got it covers what a sender can and cannot prove.
No full briefing in the body. The email is the invitation. The package page or the assistant pull is the document.
No unsubscribe that is only a preference. The block control is real and enforced — what happens when someone blocks you.
After it arrives
What to do when you receive an AI briefing is the reader-side guide. Reply from the page, from email, or — once you are connected — from your assistant. The same thread collects all three.