cold-outreach ยท diff
git:20260807.975fe85 to git:20260807.fac9f85
43 added, 18 removed. Audit A to A.
---
name: cold-outreach
- description: Research and write specific cold emails, follow-ups, and multichannel outreach sequences. Use when contacting prospects, investors, partners, or candidates.
+ description: Research, write, audit, and improve cold messages, introductions, replies, and sequences. Use when contacting prospects, investors, partners, candidates, or other professional recipients.
license: MIT
---
# Cold outreach
- Write outreach that proves attention and makes one reasonable ask. Support a single message or a full sequence; do not force a campaign when one email is enough.
+ Write outreach that proves attention, makes one reasonable ask, and respects the recipient and applicable rules.
- ## Choose the mode
+ ## Choose a mode
- - **Single message:** one cold email, introduction request, follow-up, or direct message.
- - **Sequence:** several touches across email and an optional professional network, each with a different job.
- - **Audit:** diagnose an existing message or sequence for specificity, clarity, deliverability, and repetition.
+ - **Single message:** one email, introduction request, follow-up, or professional direct message.
+ - **Sequence:** coordinated touches with distinct purposes and stop conditions.
+ - **Audit:** diagnose existing copy, research, cadence, deliverability, or compliance risk.
+ - **Reply handling:** answer a positive reply, objection, referral, out-of-office, unsubscribe, or rejection.
+ Do not create a campaign when one message is enough.
+
## Workflow
- 1. Establish the sender, recipient, relationship, goal, offer, evidence, and requested next step. Ask only for facts the available context cannot supply.
- 2. Research current recipient signals when browsing is available. Prefer primary sources: the person's work, company pages, interviews, releases, job posts, and public writing.
- 3. Separate verified facts from inference. Never invent familiarity, praise, mutual contacts, results, or urgency.
- 4. Write the shortest message that can establish relevance and make the ask. The first sentence must fail if pasted into an email to a different recipient.
- 5. For a sequence, give each touch a distinct purpose: relevance, useful proof, a new angle, a low-friction alternative, or a graceful close. Do not paraphrase the first email five times.
- 6. Check subject lines, sender identity, domain authentication, unsubscribe requirements, and applicable outreach law before recommending volume.
- 7. Read every message aloud. Remove throat-clearing, generic flattery, hidden asks, fake scarcity, and claims without provenance.
+ 1. Inspect supplied context and existing messages. Establish sender, recipient, relationship, goal, offer, proof, and requested next step without re-asking known facts.
+ 2. Research current recipient signals when research is authorized and useful. Prefer the person's work, company pages, filings/releases, job posts, interviews, and public writing. Record URLs and retrieval dates.
+ 3. Separate verified facts, sender-provided claims, and inference. Never invent familiarity, praise, mutual contacts, urgency, results, or social proof.
+ 4. Draft the shortest message that can establish relevance and make the ask. Use length and subject-line guidance as defaults, not universal laws.
+ 5. For a sequence, give every touch a different job and widening space where appropriate. Define stop conditions before copy.
+ 6. For reply handling, match the state: answer the question, reduce friction, propose the next step, or stop. Never continue after an opt-out.
+ 7. Check sender identity, authentication, list provenance, suppression handling, required identification/opt-out language, and applicable jurisdiction before recommending volume. If jurisdiction or recipient type is unknown, flag the legal uncertainty rather than declaring compliance.
+ 8. Read copy aloud. Remove generic flattery, throat-clearing, fake scarcity, hidden asks, manipulative guilt, and unsupported claims.
- ## Load deeper guidance
+ Ask only for a missing fact that materially changes the message. If a fact is useful but non-blocking, draft with a clearly marked confirmation note.
- - Read [single-email workflow](references/single-email-workflow.md) and [single-email reference](references/single-email-reference.md) for short-message formulas and deliverability checks.
- - Read [sequence workflow](references/sequence-workflow.md) and [sequence reference](references/sequence-reference.md) for cadence, widening channels, and campaign output.
+ ## Load conditional references
- ## Output
+ - For a single message or audit, read [single-message patterns](references/single-email-workflow.md). Read [single-message examples](references/single-email-reference.md) only when an example is useful.
+ - For a sequence, read [sequence design](references/sequence-workflow.md). Read [sequence examples](references/sequence-reference.md) only when needed.
- For a single message, return the subject, body, one alternate opening, and any fact that needs confirmation. For a sequence, return a table with day, channel, purpose, copy, stop condition, and measurement. Keep research notes separate from send-ready copy.
+ References are heuristic libraries, not mandatory workflows. This file is authoritative.
+
+ ## Output contract
+
+ For a single message, return:
+
+ - subject or channel opener;
+ - send-ready body;
+ - one meaningfully different opening when useful;
+ - facts requiring confirmation and source notes, separate from copy.
+
+ For a sequence, return a table with touch, timing rationale, channel, purpose, copy, stop condition, and measurement. For an audit, identify the issue, evidence, impact, and rewrite. For reply handling, return send-ready copy plus the intended next state.
+
+ ## Verify
+
+ - The opener depends on this recipient or situation.
+ - Every material claim is verified, sender-provided, or marked for confirmation.
+ - There is one clear ask or next step.
+ - Sequence touches are not paraphrases of one another.
+ - Opt-out, bounce, reply, referral, and out-of-office states have stop or routing rules.
+ - Research notes are not mixed into send-ready copy.
+ - Any timing, benchmark, deliverability, or legal claim is sourced and dated or presented as a testable default.