Design email copy and sequences with ak:email

Use ak:email to draft a newsletter or campaign email, design an automation flow, or produce a multi-message drip sequence. The Skill organizes subjects, preview text, body copy, calls to action, timing, branches, and exit conditions; it does not include an email sender.

Choose ak:email for copy and flow design

Use ak:email when

• You have an approved audience, purpose, offer or message, and CTA.
• You need newsletter, cold, followup, launch, nurture, welcome, or winback copy.
• You need a flow architecture or a complete sequence with timing and conditional branches.
• You want deliverability and list-hygiene checks included in human review.

Choose another workflow when

• You still need audience, positioning, or campaign strategy.
• You need to configure an email service, import contacts, send messages, or change a live automation. Those actions require a separate provider-specific workflow and explicit account authority.
• You lack a lawful contact basis, consent evidence, suppression data, or a working unsubscribe process. Resolve those before drafting outreach.

Prepare the brief and compliance inputs

Confirm Marketing Kit is installed for the current runtime and scope. Provide the audience and segment, relationship to recipients, message, verified offer, CTA destination, brand voice, sender identity, timing constraints, personalization fields, exit conditions, and jurisdiction or policy rules.

For an automation, specify the trigger, branches, conflict rules, suppression conditions, and what should end the flow. Treat every testimonial, scarcity claim, result, discount, deadline, and personalization field as data requiring verification.

Draft one campaign or a sequence

/ak:email newsletter "Draft the August product newsletter for opted-in customers using the approved release notes. Include an unsubscribe placeholder and do not send"

/ak:email flow welcome "Design a welcome flow for confirmed subscribers. Include trigger, timing, branches, exit on unsubscribe or purchase, and full draft copy only"

$ak:email sequence nurture "Create a nurture sequence for recipients who requested the guide. Use only supplied proof, avoid artificial urgency, and make no provider changes"

The canonical input hint is [flow|sequence|newsletter|cold|launch|nurture] [args]. Other email types named by the Skill include followup, welcome, and winback.

Understand the stages

1. Confirm the audience contract. Capture recipient relationship, consent or other approved basis, purpose, segment, exclusions, and sender identity.
2. Load brand and offer context. Apply approved voice, CTA style, prohibited wording, proof, and destination.
3. Choose the message or flow. A single email gets subject variants, preview text, body, and CTA. flow and sequence add triggers, timing, branches, and exit conditions.
4. Draft the copy. The email-wizard and copywriter roles can create the message set from the approved inputs.
5. Review deliverability and compliance. Check authentication assumptions, list hygiene, bounce handling, visible unsubscribe, plain text, links, complaint risk, and truthful urgency.
6. Return implementation notes. Keep provider fields, tags, and segment names as a reviewed plan until someone authorizes configuration and sending.

Keep sending and list changes separate

Honor unsubscribe and hard-bounce state immediately in the real sending system. Do not place secrets or unnecessary personal data in prompts or output files. Timing, open-rate, click-rate, and deliverability examples in bundled references are templates, not current provider rules or performance guarantees.

Verify outputs and evidence

A single-email route normally writes assets/copy/emails/{date}-{type}-{slug}.md. flow uses assets/emails/flows/{flow-type}-{date}.md. sequence creates a directory under assets/copy/emails/{date}-{type}-sequence/ with a plan and individual emails.

Verify that every artifact states the audience, trigger or purpose, source of claims, chosen CTA, personalization inputs, timing, branches, exit conditions, suppression and unsubscribe handling, and actions still awaiting approval. Preview every link and render in the actual email provider before sending.

Troubleshoot and know the limits

The Skill cannot guarantee inbox placement, opens, clicks, conversions, compliance, or provider acceptance. Continue with the Marketing Kit overview, and keep provider configuration and sending in a separately approved workflow.