kai-email-system

Objective

A complete, gated email system for a product: an approved lifecycle map covering every touchpoint the product actually has, plus produced copy for each email in priority order, plus the Loops implementation notes an operator needs to wire the triggers. All emails target Loops (lifecycle + transactional). The map is the contract — the emails are what the map spawns.

Done when

Work type email-lifecycle — floor E5/C3/O3 (harness/eco-floors.yaml). Any cold outreach email inside the system is graded under cold-email instead (floor E5/C4/O3).

• E5 — the ESP reports the send completed with a recipient count reconciled to the approved segment. This skill's local output reaches E3 at best: a named human approved the lifecycle map and the exact copy. The floor closes when the sends go out through Loops, which happens outside this skill.
• C3 — every email passes its declared gates (below), and a named non-producer read the set end to end. Unsubscribe and sender-identity compliance is a C4 field-standard item rather than a lint — check it against harness/references/advertising-compliance.md.
• O3 — open rate, click rate, reply rate, unsubscribe rate, and revenue per recipient read from the ESP connector at 14 days. Record the baseline and threshold before the first send, never after.

Constraints

• MARKETING.md in the project root is the product bible. Read it before asking the user anything. If it does not exist, build it from the codebase and confirm the draft before saving — never open with "what is the product?". Discovery material: CLAUDE.md, README.md, PROJECT.md, package.json and any project description files in the project root and additional working directories; existing email templates, Loops config, or email code (grep for "loops", "resend", "email", "transactional"); landing pages and marketing copy for the value prop; user flows, auth systems, billing integrations, database schemas, API routes; existing content, social profiles, marketing materials.

• MARKETING.md required sections (this file is the canonical template other /kai skills point to; unknowns stay [unknown — ask user]):

  # MARKETING.md — Product Marketing Bible
  > Auto-generated by Kai CMO Harness. Updated [date]. Edit freely — all /kai skills read this.
  
  ## Product
  Name · one-liner · category · URL
  
  ## ICP
  ### Primary ICP
  Title/role · company size · industry · budget authority · trigger event (what makes them look NOW)
  · current solution (including "nothing") · pain severity 1-10
  ### Secondary ICP (if applicable) — same fields
  ### Anti-ICP — who NOT to target, and why
  
  ## Personas
  Map to the closest harness personas in `knowledge/personas/_persona-index.md`, then customize.
  Per persona: who they are · core frustration · language they actually use (pull from reviews,
  forums, support tickets) · top 3 objections · decision trigger · channels they trust.
  ### User Segments (product-level) — e.g. admin who sets up the account, member who uses daily
  
  ## Value Prop
  Core transformation (before vs after) · 3-5 key actions · activation moment · aha moment
  
  ## Business Model
  Monetization and what triggers upgrade · pricing · stage (pre-launch/early/growth/scale) + MRR
  
  ## Current Marketing
  Channels active · email platform · ad platforms · social · content surfaces
  
  ## Brand Voice
  Tone · banned patterns · 1-2 example sentences in the right voice
  
  ## Competitive Landscape
  Top 3 competitors · our differentiation
  
  ## Key Metrics (if known)
  Traffic · conversion rate · email list size · MRR/ARR
  

• The lifecycle map is approved before any email is written. Present it and know three things before producing: what is missing, which emails are definitely not needed, and which priority tier to produce first. Map output: workspace/email-system-map.md.

• Every email in the map specifies email name (becomes the Loops template name), trigger (Loops event name, e.g. user.signed_up, trial.expiring_3d), stage, priority (P0 = launch blocker, P1 = week 1, P2 = month 1), and segment.

• Load before writing: knowledge/channels/email-lifecycle.md, harness/skill-contracts/email-lifecycle.yaml, harness/skill-contracts/email.yaml. For cold outreach emails also harness/skill-contracts/cold-email.yaml and harness/references/cold-email-rules.md.

• Per-email format contract — each email carries trigger, segment, stage, send timing, a primary subject plus two variants, preview text, body, one CTA, and its gate results:

  1. Four U's >= 10/16, scored 1-4 per U.
  2. Zero banned words (Tier 1: leverage, utilize, synergy, innovative, deep dive, circle back, touch base, moving forward, at the end of the day).
  3. Zero AI slop ("In conclusion", "It's important to note", "In today's rapidly evolving", "This comprehensive guide", "Without further ado", "It's worth noting that").
  4. Subject line <= 50 chars (mobile truncation).
  5. Preview text 40-90 chars.
  6. Body <= 500 words (200-500 target).
  7. Single primary CTA — one action per email.
  8. First line not generic (no "I hope this email finds you well").

• Retry discipline: max 2 retries per email, fixing only the named failing dimension. After 2 failures, flag the email in the quality report and move on.

• Produce in priority order, P0 first. Emails inside one sequence are written in order because tone has to flow; emails in different stages are independent and can be produced in parallel.

• Persona application: if MARKETING.md names a persona, load the full profile from knowledge/personas/ and match tone to that persona's language patterns and pain points. Otherwise use the brand voice from MARKETING.md.

• Nothing sends. This skill produces copy and setup notes; the send happens in Loops after human approval.

Context

Need	Load
Lifecycle patterns, subject-line formulas, anti-patterns	knowledge/channels/email-lifecycle.md
Gate thresholds and output format for lifecycle email	harness/skill-contracts/email-lifecycle.yaml
General email contract	harness/skill-contracts/email.yaml
Cold outreach contract and law	harness/skill-contracts/cold-email.yaml + harness/references/cold-email-rules.md
Unsubscribe, sender identity, CAN-SPAM/GDPR	harness/references/advertising-compliance.md
Persona profiles and language patterns	knowledge/personas/_persona-index.md + the matching file in knowledge/personas/
Product, ICP, voice, current channels	MARKETING.md (project root)

Standard B2B SaaS stage map — adapt to the actual product, removing irrelevant stages and adding product-specific ones:

Stage	Trigger type	Emails
Welcome	Transactional	Welcome + getting started
Onboarding	Behavioral	Setup incomplete, first value moment, invite team
Activation	Behavioral	Feature discovery, usage milestone
Conversion	Time + behavioral	Trial expiring (T-3, T-1, T-0), upgrade prompt
Engagement	Behavioral + scheduled	Weekly digest, new feature announcement
Retention	Behavioral	Usage drop, re-engagement, churn risk
Win-back	Time-based	Churned user sequence (D+7, D+14, D+30)
Transactional	Event-driven	Password reset, invoice, plan change, security alert
Referral	Milestone	Referral ask after value moment

Output. Emails go to workspace/emails/[stage]/[email-name].md — e.g. workspace/emails/onboarding/setup-incomplete.md. Alongside them:

• workspace/emails/_email-system-map.md — the full lifecycle map.
• workspace/emails/_quality-report.md — totals (emails produced, passed, flagged, average Four U's), a per-email row with each gate result, and every email that failed after 2 retries with its specific failure reason.
• workspace/emails/_loops-setup.md — every trigger event to create in Loops; segments/groups needed; sequence flows and the delays between chained emails (onboarding, trial expiration, win-back); and which emails are transactional (no unsubscribe) versus marketing (unsubscribe required).

Escalate when

• The product's activation moment or monetization trigger cannot be determined from the codebase, so behavioral triggers would be guesses.
• An email would make a quantitative or compliance-bearing claim (pricing, guarantees, results) that MARKETING.md does not support.
• The transactional/marketing split is ambiguous for an email — misclassifying it is an unsubscribe compliance failure.
• Two retries failed on the same email for the same reason.
• The user wants sends scheduled or triggers activated in Loops from here.