# Email ops Human Guide

## What This Is For
Evidence-first mailbox triage, drafting, send verification, and sent-mail-safe follow-up workflow for ECC. It gives the agent a clearer input/output frame for email marketing: what context to ask for, what decisions to make, and what usable artifact to return.

Use this as a human-readable version of the Email ops agent skill. It is meant for marketers, operators, founders, and other non-coders who want the workflow without reading agent-specific implementation instructions.

## When To Use This
- Use this when you need a repeatable process for email ops.
- Use this when the task needs judgment, examples, constraints, or a clear output format rather than a one-off prompt.
- Use this when you want to hand an AI assistant enough context to produce a usable marketing artifact.

## When Not To Use This
- Do not use this when you only need a quick factual answer.
- Do not use this when the work depends on private data you cannot share with the assistant.
- Do not use this as a replacement for legal, compliance, financial, or medical review.

## What You Need Before Starting
- The goal or business outcome you want.
- The audience, customer segment, or market context.
- Any source material the assistant should respect, such as notes, briefs, examples, URLs, or brand guidance.
- Constraints such as tone, length, channel, deadline, region, or approval requirements.
- A clear definition of what a good final answer should look like.

## Step-By-Step Workflow
1. State the job clearly: "Use the Email ops guide to help me with..."
2. Add context: audience, goal, offer, channel, source material, and constraints.
3. Ask the assistant to identify missing inputs before producing the final output.
4. Have the assistant follow the skill-specific guidance below.
5. Review the result against the final checklist and ask for revisions where needed.

## Skill-Specific Guidance
- `brand-voice` before drafting anything user-facing
- `investor-outreach` for investor, partner, or sponsor-facing mail
- `customer-billing-ops` when the thread is a billing/support incident rather than generic correspondence
- `knowledge-ops` when the message or thread should be captured into durable context afterward
- `research-ops` when a reply depends on fresh external facts
- user asks to triage inbox or archive low-signal mail
- user wants a draft, reply, or new outbound email
- user wants to know whether a mail was already sent
- the user wants proof of which account, thread, or Sent entry was used
- draft first unless the user clearly asked for a live send
- never claim a message was sent without a real Sent-folder or client-side confirmation
- do not switch sender accounts casually; choose the account that matches the project and recipient

## Decision Points And Nuance
The original skill emphasizes: Skill Stack, When to Use, Guardrails, Workflow, Resolve the exact surface, Read the thread before composing, Draft, then verify, Report exact state, Output Format, Pitfalls.

Use these questions to steer the work:
- What is the intended audience or buyer?
- What source material must be preserved?
- What should the assistant optimize for: clarity, persuasion, accuracy, speed, creativity, or conversion?
- What examples represent the desired quality bar?
- What should the assistant avoid?

## Common Mistakes
- never claim a message was sent without a real Sent-folder or client-side confirmation
- do not switch sender accounts casually; choose the account that matches the project and recipient
- do not delete uncertain business mail during cleanup
- do not claim send success without a sent-copy check
- do not ignore the thread history and write a contextless reply
- do not mix mailbox work with DM or text-message workflows
- do not expose secrets, auth details, or unnecessary message metadata

## Copy-And-Paste Prompt
```text
Use the Email ops human guide.

My goal:
[Describe the business outcome]

Audience:
[Describe who this is for]

Context and source material:
[Paste notes, examples, links, or existing copy]

Constraints:
[Tone, length, channel, timeline, must-include items, must-avoid items]

Before producing the final output, ask me for any missing information that would materially improve the result.
```

## Final Checklist
- [ ] The output matches the original goal.
- [ ] The audience and context are reflected in the answer.
- [ ] Important constraints and source material were preserved.
- [ ] The assistant made the relevant decisions explicit.
- [ ] The final artifact is ready to use, review, or hand to the next person.

## Source
This guide was generated from the affaan-m/ecc skill entry for `email-ops`.

## Source Skill Notes
These notes preserve the nuance from the original skill. Use them as supporting reference when the workflow above feels too generic.

# Email Ops

Use this when the real task is mailbox work: triage, drafting, replying, sending, or proving a message landed in Sent.

This is not a generic writing skill. It is an operator workflow around the actual mail surface.

## Skill Stack

Pull these ECC-native skills into the workflow when relevant:

- `brand-voice` before drafting anything user-facing
- `investor-outreach` for investor, partner, or sponsor-facing mail
- `customer-billing-ops` when the thread is a billing/support incident rather than generic correspondence
- `knowledge-ops` when the message or thread should be captured into durable context afterward
- `research-ops` when a reply depends on fresh external facts

## When to Use

- user asks to triage inbox or archive low-signal mail
- user wants a draft, reply, or new outbound email
- user wants to know whether a mail was already sent
- the user wants proof of which account, thread, or Sent entry was used

## Guardrails

- draft first unless the user clearly asked for a live send
- never claim a message was sent without a real Sent-folder or client-side confirmation
- do not switch sender accounts casually; choose the account that matches the project and recipient
- do not delete uncertain business mail during cleanup
- if the task is really DM or iMessage work, hand off to `messages-ops`

## Workflow

### 1. Resolve the exact surface

Before acting, settle:

- which mailbox account
- which thread or recipient
- whether the task is triage, draft, reply, or send
- whether the user wants draft-only or live send

### 2. Read the thread before composing

If replying:

- read the existing thread
- identify the last outbound touch
- identify any commitments, deadlines, or unanswered questions

If creating a new outbound:

- identify warmth level
- select the correct channel and sender account
- pull `brand-voice` before drafting

### 3. Draft, then verify

For draft-only work:

- produce the final copy
- state sender, recipient, subject, and purpose

For live-send work:

- verify the exact final body first
- send through the chosen mail surface
- confirm the message landed in Sent or the equivalent sent-copy store

### 4. Report exact state

Use exact status words:

- drafted
- approval-pending
- sent
- blocked
- awaiting verification

If the send surface is blocked, preserve the draft and report the exact blocker instead of improvising a second transport without saying so.