Cold Email Structure Checker

What it does

Most cold emails fail on structure before they fail on wording. This skill scores a draft on seven checks that are each objectively decidable, returns the scorecard, then rewrites the draft so every failed check passes without inventing facts the sender did not supply.

When to use it

• review this cold email
• is this email good
• will this get replies
• audit my outreach copy
• fix this cold email

What it needs from you

• draft: the email body, subject line included if there is one
• context: who it is going to and what the sender actually knows about them

How it works

1. Score the signal anchor: does the first line reference something specific and verifiable about the recipient, or is it a compliment. A compliment scores zero.
2. Score the relevance hook: does the email connect that signal to a problem the recipient plausibly has.
3. Score the value statement: is there one concrete claim, ideally with a number, rather than a list of capabilities.
4. Score social proof: is there one relevant reference, named or described, and is it the same size and shape as the recipient.
5. Score the call to action: exactly one, low commitment, and answerable in a sentence. Two calls to action score zero.
6. Score length: under 100 words in the body. Count them and print the count.
7. Score the spam scan: flag the words and formatting that trigger filters, and flag link and image counts.
8. Rewrite the draft so every failed check passes. Where a check fails because the sender lacks information, say what to go and find rather than inventing it.

What you get back

A seven row scorecard with pass or fail and the reason, the word count, the flagged terms, then the rewrite, then a one line note on what the sender still needs to find out.

The quality bar

• The word count is printed as a number
• Any invented fact about the recipient is refused and named as a gap instead
• Exactly one call to action survives in the rewrite
• Each of the seven checks gets an explicit pass or fail, never a maybe

Where it runs

• Claude Code
• Codex CLI
• Cursor
• MCP-compatible agents