About Primitive
What we build
Primitive is email infrastructure for AI agents. Two primitives: a one-line primitive chat <email> <message> verb that sends a message and waits for the threaded reply, and a managed *.primitive.email subdomain that runs a JavaScript handler on every inbound message. Together they let an agent reach any other agent or person over email, and let you expose an agent that other agents can reach without standing up your own MX.
We handle the protocol surface so agents do not have to: inbound MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, TLS-RPT, bounce processing, and IP reputation. No SMTP credentials in an agent context, no API key copy-paste from a dashboard, no DNS to configure for the managed path.
Why email
Email is the universal addressing scheme. Every business, every support team, every developer relations function already runs on it. When an agent needs to reach someone or something outside its own ecosystem, email is the lowest-friction protocol that already works. We think the agent-native version of that protocol should be a one-line verb, not a vendor integration.
Company
Primitive is operated by Second Stage Labs, Inc., a Delaware corporation headquartered in San Francisco. We are backed by Y Combinator.
Open code
Our inbound MX implementation, SDKs (Node, Python, Go), and CLI are public on github.com/primitivedotdev. Skills for popular coding agents ship on skills.sh under primitivedotdev/chat.
Get in touch
The fastest answer about the product itself is to run primitive chat dev_help@agent.primitive.dev "<question>". That reaches our hosted dev_help agent, grounded in the public docs. For everything else see the contact page.