Cold Email Kickoff

Cold Email Kickoff — adaptive router

State-aware router. Operators don't ship cold email on day 1 — they go through a sequence: ICP → PSP → EVP → infrastructure → first send → reply triage → iterate. Kickoff detects where the operator is in that sequence and picks the right next step.

Activation

Loaded by cold-email on:

• Bare /cold-email invocation (no other intent)
• "Where do I start"
• "What should I do next"
• "I'm new — what's the path"
• "Onboard me"

State detection

Before recommending, kickoff checks the project state:

# Pseudo-code
state = {
    "has_brand_config":   file_exists("brand-config.json"),
    "has_soul":           file_exists("SOUL.md"),
    "has_psp":            "psp" in brand_config and brand_config.psp.primary_pain != "",
    "has_evp":            "evp" in brand_config and brand_config.evp.primary != "",
    "has_infrastructure": "infrastructure" in brand_config and brand_config.infrastructure.sending_domain != "",
    "deliverability_audited_recently": days_since(brand_config.infrastructure.deliverability_last_audited) < 30,
    "first_send_logged":  has_entries(brand_config.operations.experiment_log_path),
    "reply_data_available": has_logged_replies(brand_config.operations.experiment_log_path)
}

Map state to the next-best step:

Welcome flow

On first invocation with no state:

> /cold-email

Welcome. Let's figure out where you are.

[Detected state: brand-config.json missing]

You're at step 1 of 7. The 7 steps:

1. ⬜ Set up brand-config + voice (10 min)        ← YOU ARE HERE
2. ⬜ Build a Pain Signal Profile (20-30 min)
3. ⬜ Lock the EVP for your primary tier (15 min)
4. ⬜ Set up sending infrastructure
5. ⬜ Run the 15-point pre-campaign deliverability check
6. ⬜ Draft + ship first signal-anchored sequence
7. ⬜ Score replies + iterate (weekly rhythm)

Step 1 takes ~10 minutes and is required for everything else.

Want to run it now? (y/n)

If yes → invoke cold-email-onboarding. If no → tell the operator what minimum-mode produces, and offer to defer.

Status check mode

User-invocable: /cold-email status

Returns:

# Cold Email program status

Brand config:        ✓ brand-config.json (24 fields)
Voice (SOUL.md):     ✓ SOUL.md (8 phrases used, 6 banned, 5 stories)
PSP:                 ✓ Series-B SaaS pipeline-gap pain
EVP:                 ✓ Tier 3: "For Series-B SaaS, in a pipeline gap, we ship 14+ SQLs/month without hiring 2 SDRs"
Infrastructure:      ✓ outreach.acmecloud.com (Smartlead, ramped 60+d, DMARC quarantine)
Deliverability:      ✓ Last audited 2026-05-20 (3 days ago) — score 94/100
First send:          ✓ 142 sends logged (last 14d)
Reply data:          ✓ 11 replies (4 positive, 2 buy-signal, 5 neutral) — 7.7% reply rate

You're in iteration mode. Recommended next step:
→ Run `cold-email-audit` against your current program for the 30-point grade.
→ Or run `cold-email-weekly-rhythm` to set Monday's hunt + Wednesday's ship.

Resume from a specific step

User-invocable: /cold-email resume <step>

Where step is onboarding | psp | evp | infrastructure | deliverability | first-send | iterate. Jumps to that step regardless of detected state.

Why state-aware routing matters

Without it, kickoff would dump a "here are 12 sub-skills" menu and overwhelm the operator. State-aware routing surfaces the ONE next step that matters most given where they actually are.

The 30K+-star marketing-skills repos that work do this — orchestrator adapts, doesn't list. Operators ship faster.

References

• ../cold-email-onboarding/SKILL.md — invoked on missing state
• ../cold-email-craft/SKILL.md — invoked on "ready to ship"
• ../cold-email-audit/SKILL.md — invoked on "have reply data"
• ../cold-email-weekly-rhythm/SKILL.md — invoked on "in iteration mode"