/email-lifecycle

name: email-lifecycle
description: >-
  Lifecycle email, SMS and push: audits the list and deliverability, then writes the flows this kind
  of business needs first, loadable as-is in your own tool, plus segments, cadence and this week's
  broadcasts. Never sends anything. Use when: set up my welcome and abandoned-cart emails; trial
  onboarding or waitlist launch emails; win back lapsed customers; plan this week's emails and texts;
  push notifications for my app; why are my emails going to spam; plan our Black Friday email and SMS
  sends; a send went wrong. Not for cold outreach to prospects — use write-outreach; not the editorial
  newsletter issue — use make-content; not the whole cross-channel Black Friday plan — use
  plan-campaign.
version: 0.1.0

email-lifecycle

One marketer want: "Cart and welcome emails make money while I sleep — mine do not exist." The playbook drafts and stages a lifecycle program; the marketer loads it into their own tool and presses send.

What you get

1. **Deliverability and list report** — every plumbing item green / red / unknown, each marked *verified* (the agent saw it), *from you* or *unknown*. Never a green the agent did not see. Red and unknown items come with the exact fix and who does it. 2. **Flow pack** — the flows you asked for, or else the top two this business can load today (a third is offered), each a build sheet in your tool's own terms: trigger, filters, exit, re-entry, consent per market, priority and suppressions, timing, and every message finished, plus its goal metric, its test, a holdout where one fits, and the result it should beat. Each flow is marked **ready to load** or **not ready**, with the blocker in plain words ("waiting on your answer about returns", "needs your app to tell the email tool who installed", "your current plan can't run this — here are the options"). 3. **Segments, priority and cadence** — segment definitions in the company's own terms (clicks, orders, activity — not opens), the flow priority map and frequency cap, the proposed send cadence. 4. **This week's broadcasts and the month's calendar** — broadcasts finished and ready to schedule (email; SMS only where consent exists and the moment is high-intent); the calendar as one table of dates and ideas. 5. **Proposals awaiting a yes** — offer depth with margin math, cadence, sunset slice, tool or plan changes, a tracking plan for missing events, any high-stakes send.

Before you start

1. **Setup first:** do the `marketing-guide` skill (`../marketing-guide/SKILL.md`) §1–2 (connect, brand, brain read) before anything else; the job line is "build your email program"; `get_started` also takes `wants: "more"`; groups to load: files, campaigns, media, automation, brand. **Incident mode** (step 2) runs its pause list before the brain read. 2. **Pick the mode** (`references/modes-and-incidents.md`): **build**, **weekly**, **monthly**, **seasonal** or **incident**. **Incident first:** the first reply is the "pause now" list as click-by-click steps for the marketer — before any brain read, intake or audit. Otherwise do only the work the asked outcome needs and say in one line what you are not doing this run. 3. **Read the brand brain.** Brain chapters: 2 "What we sell" (prices, offers, policies), 5 "Who we sell to", 11 "How we sound", 15 "How we work together", 17 "Accounts and tools" (the email tool), 18 "How we count results", 20 "Our plan"; `gooseworks:brain_open` for full product records. Fallback path: `brand_read` sections `summary`, `kit`, `products`, `onboarding`, `learnings`, and full product records (`product_ids`) for products the flows will feature. Load the `claims-gate` skill (`../claims-gate/SKILL.md`) and read the contract only; the scoped sign-off, if needed, comes in intake message 2. The standing first-order offer and brand-wide policies come from the `Standing offer:`, any `Policy:` and earlier `[lifecycle …]` facts (else the Brand record, read with `file_read`); never from search snippets. For a message signed by a person, read their voice card if one exists (the `voice-card` skill (`../voice-card/SKILL.md`), read only); if none, write in the brand voice, say the note isn't yet in their own voice, and offer to build the card later. 4. **Load the last run, then read what the program already knows.** Run the Start steps of the `run-memory` skill (`../run-memory/SKILL.md`) with `references/run-memory.md` (incident mode: after the pause list) — steps 1–2 now: the newest record across the email jobs gives last run's numbers with their windows and its open recommendations ("add a second cart email"), so intake message 1 asks for the export that covers them; steps 3–4 inside step 1's audit, once the exports are in: each recommendation checked done / not done / unknown from the flows list, a test email or the marketer's word, and judged against its baseline when a settled window exists. Then `gooseworks:file_read` `lifecycle/program.md` (flows live, each flow's hypothesis and last result, segments, cadence); `gooseworks:file_list` `reports/performance/` and read the latest weekly read's email rows; `gooseworks:campaign_read` to list the brand's campaigns, then read each active one in full for its email/SMS rows and hand-offs; the latest `search/fixes/` file's "For your email program — review requests" section (a review-request brief); `content/newsletter/` for make-content's next issue; `Graphic ready:` lines under this playbook's own header-art requests in `lifecycle/flows/`. The marketer's email-tool connector, when listed, is read only (`references/intake.md` Q2). 5. **Ask only what is missing, in two short messages** (`references/intake.md` has the wording). **Message 1** (≤ 8 questions, prefilled with best guesses; skip what the brand type or a campaign brief already settles): the email tool and plan first, unless the brain names it (the guide's rule "The marketer's own tools": no tool → options for their type; its connector listed →