---
title: Email Triage RL Environment
emoji: 📧
colorFrom: blue
colorTo: indigo
sdk: docker
app_port: 7860
pinned: false
license: apache-2.0
short_description: RL env to classify, route and reply to emails
tags:
  - openenv
  - email-triage
  - rl
  - real-world
  - nlp
  - reinforcement-learning
  - environment
---

# 📧 Email Triage Environment

> **Meta × PyTorch OpenEnv Hackathon — Round 1**
> An RL environment where an AI agent learns to triage real-world emails.

## 🎯 What Is This?

This environment simulates an **email triage system** — a task every business performs daily. An agent receives a queue of emails and must:

1. **Classify** the email (spam / billing / technical / hr / general)
2. **Assign a priority** (low / medium / high / urgent)
3. **Route** to the correct department (support / finance / engineering / hr / management)
4. **Draft a professional reply** (required for medium and hard tasks)

Rewards are **continuous and partial** — agents earn credit for getting each dimension right, incentivising learning even when the full answer isn't perfect.

---

## 🗂️ Action Space

| Field        | Type   | Values                                              |
|--------------|--------|-----------------------------------------------------|
| `category`   | string | `spam` · `billing` · `technical` · `hr` · `general` |
| `priority`   | string | `low` · `medium` · `high` · `urgent`                |
| `department` | string | `support` · `finance` · `engineering` · `hr` · `management` |
| `reply`      | string | Free-text reply draft (empty string for easy tasks) |

---

## 👁️ Observation Space

| Field             | Type   | Description                                  |
|-------------------|--------|----------------------------------------------|
| `email_id`        | string | Unique email identifier                      |
| `subject`         | string | Email subject line                           |
| `body`            | string | Full email body                              |
| `sender`          | string | Sender's email address                       |
| `task_level`      | string | `easy` · `medium` · `hard`                  |
| `feedback`        | string | Natural-language grader feedback             |
| `score`           | float  | Cumulative average score (0.0–1.0)           |
| `emails_remaining`| int    | Number of emails left in the episode         |
| `done`            | bool   | Episode complete flag                        |
| `reward`          | float  | Per-step reward (0.0–1.0)                    |

---

## 📊 Task Descriptions

### 🟢 Easy — Classification Only
- **5 emails** per episode (spam, billing, technical, HR, general)
- Agent must correctly classify category, priority, and department
- No reply required
- Score: `category(0.4) + priority(0.3) + department(0.3)`

### 🟡 Medium — Classification + Short Reply
- **3 emails** per episode (billing urgency, technical incident, HR complaint)
- Agent must classify AND write a professional 2-4 sentence reply
- Score: `classification(0.5) + reply_quality(0.5)`
- Reply graded on: professional tone, keyword coverage

### 🔴 Hard — Classification + Detailed Accurate Reply
- **3 emails** per episode (enterprise escalations, security incidents, board complaints)
- Agent must classify AND write a detailed, accurate reply covering specific required points
- Score: `classification(0.4) + reply_depth(0.6)`
- Reply graded on: length, tone, keyword coverage (9 required keywords per email)

---

## 🏆 Reward Function

Rewards are **partial and continuous** — agents earn credit at every step:

| Condition                                 | Reward        |
|-------------------------------------------|---------------|
| Correct category                          | +0.15 – +0.40 |
| Correct priority                          | +0.13 – +0.30 |
| Correct department                        | +0.12 – +0.30 |
| Reply provided (non-trivial)              | +0.05 – +0.10 |
| Professional tone in reply                | +0.05 – +0.10 |
| Each required keyword matched             | proportional  |
| Missing reply on medium/hard             | −0.10 penalty |

---

## 🚀 Quick Start

### 1. Install dependencies
```bash
git clone https://huggingface.co/spaces/Shivacode/rl-hackathon
cd rl-hackathon
pip install -e email_triage_rl_hackathon/
```

### 2. Run the server locally
```bash
# Easy task (default)
uvicorn email_triage_rl_hackathon.server.app:app --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000 --reload

# Medium task
TASK_LEVEL=medium uvicorn email_triage_rl_hackathon.server.app:app --port 8000

# Hard task
TASK_LEVEL=hard uvicorn email_triage_rl_hackathon.server.app:app --port 8000
```

### 3. Interact with the environment (Python)
```python
import asyncio
from email_triage_rl_hackathon import EmailTriageEnv, TriageAction

async def main():
    env = EmailTriageEnv(base_url="http://localhost:8000")
    obs = await env.reset(seed=42, task_level="easy")
    print(obs.subject)

    result = await env.step(TriageAction(
        category="billing", priority="urgent",
        department="finance",
        reply="Dear customer, we apologize and will investigate within 24 hours."
    ))
    print(result.reward, result.observation.feedback)
    await env.close()

asyncio.run(main())
```

### 4. Run with Docker
```bash
docker build -t email-triage-env .
docker run -p 7860:7860 -e TASK_LEVEL=easy email-triage-env
```

### 5. Run inference against this Space
```bash
HF_TOKEN=hf_your_token_here \
ENV_BASE_URL=https://Shivacode-rl-hackathon.hf.space \
TASK_LEVEL=easy \
python inference.py
```

---

## 📈 Scores (Qwen/Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct via HF Router)

| Task Level | Steps | Score  |
|------------|-------|--------|
| Easy       | 5     | 0.880  |
| Medium     | 3     | 0.830  |
| Hard       | 3     | 0.800  |
| **Overall**|       | **0.837** |

---

## 🗃️ Project Structure

```
rl-hackathon/
├── Dockerfile                    # HF Spaces Docker deployment (port 7860)
├── inference.py                  # Run agent against this environment
├── baseline.py                   # Baseline script (OpenAI models)
└── email_triage_rl_hackathon/
    ├── __init__.py               # Public exports
    ├── models.py                 # TriageAction, TriageObservation
    ├── client.py                 # EmailTriageEnv (EnvClient)
    ├── openenv.yaml              # Environment manifest
    ├── pyproject.toml            # Package config + scripts entry point
    ├── uv.lock                   # Locked dependencies
    └── server/
        ├── app.py                # FastAPI app (uvicorn entry point)
        ├── my_environment.py     # EmailTriageEnvironment (reset/step/state)
        ├── email_data.py         # 11 curated emails across 3 levels
        ├── graders.py            # Deterministic graders (easy/medium/hard)
        └── requirements.txt
```

---

## 🔑 Environment Variables

| Variable        | Default                    | Description                          |
|-----------------|----------------------------|--------------------------------------|
| `TASK_LEVEL`    | `easy`                     | Task difficulty: easy / medium / hard |
| `PORT`          | `7860`                     | Server port                          |
| `HF_TOKEN`      | —                          | Required for inference.py (HF router)|
| `MODEL_NAME`    | `Qwen/Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct`| Model for inference                  |
| `ENV_BASE_URL`  | `http://localhost:8000`    | Environment server URL               |


## Structure

```
hackathon-sst/
├── email_triage_rl_hackathon/              
│   ├── models.py        ← Action / Observation / State
│   ├── client.py        ← EnvClient
│   ├── server/
│   │   ├── my_environment.py          ← reset(), step(), state()
│   │   └── app.py             ← FastAPI server
│   ├── Dockerfile
│   └── openenv.yaml
├── pyproject.toml
└── .venv/               ← Python virtual environment
```

## Getting Started

```bash
# Activate venv
source .venv/bin/activate

# Install dependencies
pip install openenv-core fastapi uvicorn pydantic

# Run the server
uvicorn email_triage_rl_hackathon.server.app:app --reload --port 8000
```

## Useful Links

- [OpenEnv GitHub](https://github.com/meta-pytorch/OpenEnv)
- [OpenEnv Course](https://github.com/huggingface/openenv-course)
- [OpenEnv Docs](https://meta-pytorch.org/OpenEnv/)
- [Hackathon Dashboard](https://www.scaler.com/school-of-technology/meta-pytorch-hackathon/)