Update docs to reflect stages 1-4 complete and working email reply

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

README.md

@@ -3,8 +3,7 @@
 > **Experimental** — this is a work in progress and the architecture is still evolving.
 
 An IMAP bridge that forwards emails from a trusted sender as prompts to a running
-[Claude Code](https://claude.ai/code) instance. Send an email, get a response in
-your terminal.
+[Claude Code](https://claude.ai/code) instance, and sends replies back via email.
 
 ## How it works
 
@@ -12,16 +11,17 @@ your terminal.
 2. Filters by a configured sender address
 3. Formats the email as a prompt and dispatches it to Claude Code via an external
    paste utility
-4. Claude Code reads and responds in the terminal as normal
+4. Claude Code processes the message and replies via the CCC `send-email` action
 
 ## Dependencies
 
 - [imapflow](https://imapflow.com/) — IMAP client
 - [mailparser](https://nodemailer.com/extras/mailparser/) — email parsing
-- An external script to actually deliver the prompt to Claude Code's terminal window.
+- An external script to deliver the prompt to Claude Code's terminal window.
   This tool has been tested with
   [claude-code-conduit](https://gitea.efforting.tech/mikael-lovqvists-claude-agent/claude-code-conduit)
   and a companion paste utility that targets the correct Konsole window via xdotool.
+  CCC also provides the `send-email` action used for replies.
 
 ## Configuration
 
@@ -59,6 +59,5 @@ node mail-buddy.mjs
   falls back to 45s polling)
 - The paste mechanism steals window focus on every message; a cleaner PTY-based
   approach is planned
-- No email reply capability yet — Claude can only respond in the terminal for now
 - Sender filtering is substring-based, not cryptographically verified (DKIM
   checking is planned)

plan.md

@@ -29,21 +29,22 @@ For now, `allowed_sender` substring match is sufficient for exploration. Worth a
 
 ## Implementation Stages
 
-### Stage 1 — Explore the message object (current)
+### ✅ Stage 1 — Explore the message object
 Receive a message and `inspect()` the full imapflow msg object to understand what
 data is available (headers, body parts, envelope, flags, etc.).
 
-### Stage 2 — Prompt construction
-Parse the message into a well-formed prompt: sender, subject, body. Prefix with
-instructions telling Claude to reply via the CCC `send-email` action.
+### ✅ Stage 2 — Prompt construction
+Parse the message into a well-formed prompt using `mailparser`. Use HTML body for
+better encoding/structure fidelity. Instruct Claude to reply via CCC per
+`email_protocol.md`.
 
-### Stage 3 — CCC send-email action
-Extend `claude-code-conduit` with a `send-email` action (SMTP). Claude calls it as
-a tool with recipient, subject, and body.
+### ✅ Stage 3 — CCC send-email action
+`send-email` action already existed in `claude-code-conduit` with full SMTP,
+permission store, and topic-based access control. Tested and working end-to-end.
 
-### Stage 4 — Wire it together
-Replace the `inspect()` call with `make_prompt` + `send_to_claude`. End-to-end flow:
-email in → Claude processes → email out.
+### ✅ Stage 4 — Wire it together
+`make_prompt` + `send_to_claude` wired up. Full flow working:
+email in → Claude processes → replies via CCC send-email → email out.
 
 ### Stage 5 — Adaptive polling
 High/low frequency mode: switch to fast polling (e.g. 10s) when a message arrives,