--- name: cold-email-pipeline description: >- Run a cold email campaign end to end on Jell from one targeting sentence: Research, List, Grade, Verify, Write, Send. Reads a directives folder (ICP, lead source filters, negative keywords, qualification rubric, copy rules) so "target independent mortgage brokers in Lyon" becomes a graded, verified, personalised campaign sent from an inbox the workspace owns, with two human gates. Use when the user wants to launch cold outreach, build and qualify a lead list, write cold email at scale, or run the prospecting pipeline. The daily loop after the first send is the sdr-daily skill. --- # Cold email pipeline Six stages over a directives folder the user configures once. The stages that touch data call Jell capabilities; the stages that judge (grading, writing) run on you. Two gates: the final list and copy, and the first live send. Everything between them runs on its own. ``` Research → List → Grade → Verify → Write → Send brief raw keep clean per- inbox the leads ICP list lead workspace only copy owns ``` Raw lead lists are 30 to 50% wrong-ICP. Grade and Verify exist so the campaign does not email agencies, dead sites and wrong-geo firms, tank the reply rate and burn the domain. ## Before you start - Load the core `jell` skill (https://jell.run/SKILL.md) if it is not loaded. Confirm access with the free `balance` tool or `jell balance`. - Check `directives/` exists in the working project. If not, copy the `directives/` folder next to this file into the project and ask the user to fill `icp.md`, `lead-source.md` and `email-copy.md`. Those three are mandatory; the others have sensible defaults. When no human is in the loop (a scheduled or delegated run), fill them from the brief you were given, say so in the files, and treat the caller's budget as the approval at both gates. - Run the free `email.inboxes`. The campaign sends from an inbox the workspace owns on a verified domain. If there is none, stop and run the cold email infrastructure setup first (`domain.search`, `domain.register`, `email.domain`, `domain.dns`, `email.inbox`: the guide at https://jell.run/use-cases/cold-email-infrastructure), each purchase behind its own confirmation. - Inspect `people.search`, `company.search`, `contact.find`, `contact.verify`, `web.scrape` and `email.send` once and show the prices (inspect lists every input field with its allowed values). Quote the campaign as a whole before stage 2. Over the CLI there is no `batch_run`: loop `run` with `max_cost` on each; `batch_run` with `max_total_cost` is the MCP form. ## Stages ### 1. Research (once per ICP) Write `directives/research-brief.md`: what these buyers care about, the daily friction, the words they use, the events that make now the right time. Use your own web search and fetch when you have them; `web.search` and `web.scrape` when you do not or a site blocks you. Every claim in the brief carries a source URL. Reused across campaigns. ### 2. List Translate the user's sentence through `directives/lead-source.md` into `people.search` filters: ```bash jell run -c people.search -i '{"titles":["founder","managing director"],"industries":["financial services"],"locations":["Lyon, France"],"company_headcount":["1-10","11-50"],"limit":25}' --max-cost 0.35 --wait 120 -o out/leads-raw.json ``` `company_headcount` bands are `1-10`, `11-50`, `51-200`, `201-500`, `501-1000`, `1001-5000`, `5001-10000`, `10001+` and `seniority` is `entry`, `senior`, `manager`, `director`, `vp`, `cxo`, `partner`, `owner`; anything else is refused before routing. The quote is $0.175 a 25-result page plus $0.007 a profile in full mode ($0.35 at 25, $1.40 at 100), and the quote is the floor. Rows carry `first_name`, `last_name`, `name`, `headline`, `current_title`, `current_company`, `linkedin_url`, `location`; `email` is always empty and there is no web domain, which `contact.find` needs. Or start from accounts (the `hiring-signal-outbound` skill, or `company.search` with the query and the posting's location) and search people inside them: one `people.search` with up to six LinkedIn company URLs in `companies` costs one page ($0.175 plus profiles) instead of one page per company. Get the domain and the headcount from `company.search` per account (`domain`, `employee_count`; the range field is the company's declared bracket and often disagrees, filter on the count), and drop rows with an empty `current_title` or `current_company` or a truncated last name. Apply `negative-keywords.md` at search time where a filter supports it. Output: `out/leads-raw.csv`, after that cleaning. ### 3. Grade First drop the rows whose title or posting is not the role (a job search returns Marketo developers and consultancies alongside the growth engineers), then, for each remaining company, read its website and assign a category from `directives/qualification.md`: `ICP` to keep; `agency`, `saas`, `freelancer`, `enterprise`, `wrong-geo`, `dead-site`, `unclear` to drop or hold. Add categories to the rubric when the ICP is itself software (a `consumer` or `below-band` row is not `unclear`). Fetch with your own tool when you have one; `web.scrape` (`{"url": ...}`) when you do not. Pre-classify with the negative keywords, then read the fetched text yourself for every `unclear` row and a sample of `ICP` rows. The rubric judges, not the keywords. Output: `out/leads-graded.csv`, all rows kept with `category` and `category_reason`, so the user can audit the filter. ### 4. Verify On `ICP` rows only: 1. Free dedupe first: `jell history --file people.txt` on the LinkedIn URLs (there are no emails yet) says who this workspace already contacted (`contacted`) and which paid results exist (`reusable`, with the run id: reuse them instead of paying again). `seen` alone means a run touched the URL and is not a reason to drop. 2. Email missing: `contact.find` with first name, last name and `company_domain`. No-match is released, not billed; the result is absent from the receipt, not null. Run `history --file emails.txt` once more on the found addresses before the send. 3. Every email: `contact.verify`. Keep `valid`; drop `invalid`; hold `catch_all` and `unknown` in their own column. 4. One row per company unless the user targets named individuals; two contacts per company at most. 5. Clean merge fields: strip legal suffixes (Inc, Ltd, SARL, Lda), fix ALL-CAPS names. A broken merge field is an instant blast tell. Output: `out/leads-verified.csv`. ### 5. Write Per-lead copy from `directives/email-copy.md` fused with the research brief. Rules: the first line is written from that lead (role, company, one site detail); the angle follows the tier in the directive; one call to action; plain text; 120 to 160 words before the signature and the opt-out line; the product facts match the live site (verify, never invent a feature or a trial term). Write the J+0, J+4 and J+10 rows per lead with a `stage` column. Output: `out/campaign.csv` with `to, first_name, company, tier, stage, subject, body`. **Gate 1: show the count, the category breakdown, the verification breakdown, three sample emails, and the quote for the send. Wait.** ### 6. Send 1. Send one test to the user's own address from the campaign inbox and ask them to check it lands in the inbox, not in promotions or spam. 2. **Gate 2: the user confirms the first live batch.** 3. Send from the owned inbox, plain text, with a reply-to and an unsubscribe line: ```bash jell run -c email.send -i '{"inbox_id":"","to":["alex@example.com"],"subject":"...","text":"...","reply_to":"you@yourdomain.com","unsubscribe_url":"https://yourdomain.com/unsubscribe"}' --max-cost 0.01 ``` `inbox_id` is the inbox address as `email.inboxes` lists it; `to` takes a list (a single string is accepted). `unsubscribe_url` is a page the user owns; when there is none, leave it out and rely on the opt-out sentence in the body. A send cost $0.0035 when this was written; send one to yourself first, then read it back with `email.messages` on the same inbox to prove both directions work. Ramp on a fresh domain: 5 to 10 a day for the first three days, 15 through day seven, then 25 to 30. Never burst: spread a day's sends across the day. Log every send to `out/sent-log.json` as `{"run_id", "message_id", "to", "subject", "stage", "sent_at"}`; the `sdr-daily` skill matches replies on `to` and `subject` and threads follow-ups on `message_id`. ## Rules - Inspect once per capability, quote the whole campaign at stage 2 and the send at Gate 1. Stop before a batch over about $1 unless the user asked for that volume. - `max_cost` on every run, `max_total_cost` on every `batch_run` (MCP). Per-result capabilities bill the requested limit even when fewer rows come back. - Only email people the user is entitled to contact under the law that applies to them and to the recipient. B2B first-party outreach with an identifiable sender and a working opt-out is the floor; the user decides what their jurisdiction needs and the skill does not lower it. - Never send from a shared or unverified domain. Never send HTML, images or tracking pixels in a first touch. - Never fabricate a product fact, a number or a first line. If the research does not support a hook, use a plain one. ## Output The four CSVs in `out/`, the sent log, and a summary: leads raw, kept after grade, kept after verify, sent, total charged as the sum of every run's `billing.charged` (not a wallet difference: the balance is shared by every session on the key), with run IDs. Then hand the loop to `sdr-daily`.