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How Outside Events Reach Your Helper

The ways external services and messages can reach your AI helper: the managed mailbox, the optional SMS number, and webhook trigger URLs.

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Your helper does not sit idle waiting for you to type. Outside events can reach it in three ways. Two are built in. One is an advanced option for connecting other tools.

Whatever comes in, one rule holds: when your helper wants to respond to the outside world, it drafts first. The draft lands in your Inbox, and you review it before anything is sent. Incoming events can wake your helper and give it work. They cannot make it send things on their own.

1. Email to the managed mailbox (built in)

Every helper gets its own managed mailbox on @mg.brainroad.com. When a customer emails that address, the message flows into your Business Brain as context, and your helper prepares a draft reply as an item in your Inbox. You edit, approve, or decline it there.

This is the main way outside events reach your helper today, and it needs no setup. Give the address to a customer, add it to a contact form’s notification list, or forward messages to it, and each real message becomes a reviewable draft.

2. Text messages (opt-in, Pro)

On the Pro plan you can request a text-only SMS number for your helper. It is manually provisioned, not automatic. Incoming texts mirror into the Business Brain, and any outgoing text always requires your approval in the Inbox. Texts never send on their own.

3. Webhook trigger URLs (advanced)

A webhook is just a URL that another service can send an automatic message to when something happens. Many tools support this: Stripe can call a URL when a payment lands, GitHub when code changes, Zapier when almost anything happens.

BrainRoad gives each OpenClaw helper two trigger URLs you can paste into those tools:

  • A Wake Webhook that nudges your helper with a short note, so it looks at something now.
  • A Task Endpoint that hands your helper a specific task to work on.

A few honest limits:

  • They are available for the OpenClaw helper only. Hermes trigger URLs are not exposed in the dashboard yet.
  • The URLs route to your helper’s private workspace, so the helper must be running to receive them. A stopped helper does not receive webhook calls.
  • A webhook can give your helper information and work. It cannot approve anything. Customer-facing follow-up still shows up as a draft in your Inbox.

Setup steps and examples: Setting Up Webhook Triggers.

What does not exist

To keep expectations straight:

  • There is no generic per-helper inbox URL that turns arbitrary webhook payloads into customer replies automatically.
  • Webhooks do not bypass review. Nothing a webhook triggers can send email, texts, or quotes without your approval, outside the narrow auto-approvals you have explicitly turned on.
  • BrainRoad does not send outbound webhooks to your other systems as a built-in feature.