conversion-and-email

name	conversion-and-email
description	Load when touching email capture, sequences, Mission Control, athlete replies, or any conversion surface.

Conversion and Email

You are editing the money path: forms that capture an email, the sequences that follow, and the reply loop that turns a warm lead into a $15/wk plan sale. Read CLAUDE.md's "Email Capture Forms" section first (worker POST, honeypot, addEventListener) — not repeated here. For sequence copywriting (voice, devices, ship process), load .claude/skills/email-sequences/SKILL.md before editing mission_control/templates/emails/ or mission_control/sequences/. This file is the surface map, brand routing, and two hard rules.

1. The conversion surface map

• Prep strip — wordpress/generate_neo_brutalist.py::build_prep_strip() (~line 3915). Renders on race pages between hero and TOC: demand chips, weeks-out countdown, live price, three CTAs (data-cta=prep_strip_build / prep_profile_full / prep_strip_kit). Kit link anchors to the on-page email gate (#prep-kit-capture).
• Prep kit generator — wordpress/generate_prep_kit.py. Renders gated full prep-kit content; posts to FUELING_WORKER_URL.
• Rider Score — hero block in generate_neo_brutalist.py (~line 1950-1962). Number comes ONLY from real racer_rating submissions (star_average × 20) gated by RACER_RATING_THRESHOLD; below threshold it shows an honest "RIDER SCORE · RATE IT →" ask (data-cta=hero_rate_race) to #racer-reviews, never a fabricated number. Ratings themselves post to workers/review-intake/worker.js — check that worker if ratings aren't showing up, not the general capture path.
• General email capture (9 sources: exit intent, race profile, prep kit gate, quiz, quiz-shared, tire guide, race review, state hub, date reminder, plus fueling calculator) — all post to workers/fueling-lead-intake/worker.js. Multi-brand: page sends brand: 'gravelgod' | 'roadielabs' (absent = gravelgod).
• Sequences (Mission Control) — defs in mission_control/sequences/*.py (registry mission_control/sequences/__init__.py), engine mission_control/services/sequence_engine.py, templates mission_control/templates/emails/sequences/*.html.

CLAUDE.md's Email Capture Forms rule names a generic WORKER_URL (email-intake.gravelgodcoaching.workers.dev) — no worker with that exact name exists in workers/. Live generators point at fueling-lead-intake (or review-intake). Grep the specific generator for WORKER_URL — don't trust the generic CLAUDE.md string.

2. Mission Control is brand-aware

Sequences carry a "brand" key; absent means gravelgod. sequence_brand() and get_sequences_for_trigger(trigger, brand) in mission_control/sequences/__init__.py filter enrollment so a Roadie Labs lead cannot receive Gravel God copy or vice versa. Sender/reply-to/UTM are looked up per brand in mission_control/config.py::BRAND_SEQUENCE_SENDERS. Tests: mission_control/tests/test_brand_routing.py.

Current verified state (check "active" in each road_*.py before trusting old notes): all four road sequences are "active": True, roadielabs.com is verified in Resend — the "road inactive pending DNS" state from early Jul 2026 is stale. Open caveat [UNVERIFIED — session memory, Jul 2026]: plan_purchased enrollment may not pass brand yet, so a road buyer could still enroll in gravel post-purchase — trace mission_control/routers/webhooks.py before relying on it.

Rule: before editing a sequence file, check its brand key and "active" flag — never let a Gravel God edit land in a road_*.py file or template, or vice versa.

3. Voice

Binding: docs/email-voice-model.md (devices per brand) and docs/email-conversion-principles.md (five gears, masters' moves, banned list). Read both — don't improvise voice here.

One rule easy to forget mid-edit, not always spelled out in those two docs: never write defensive messaging. "No sponsors," "no affiliates," "no ambush," "scored not sponsored" — any phrase answering a question the reader wasn't asking plants the doubt it claims to dispel. Standing rule (Matt's) across all GG/RL surfaces, not just email. If a draft justifies its own honesty, cut the justification.

4. The order-killer rule

A field the system can estimate or defer must never hard-fail an intake or capture flow. If it can be defaulted, default it and flag it.

War story (sibling repo athlete-custom-training-plan-pipeline, lesson is general): an intake validator hard-required FTP even though the plan builder already estimates it from weight — one blank field killed a paying order at step 1. Separately, a Jun 2026 GA4 audit on this repo's own forms found roughly zero real leads/month reaching completion (PDF + timeout bugs), since fixed. Failures must be invisible to the customer, loud to the coach — never auto-email an athlete "we hit a snag"; it advertises the breakage and often fires on a retry that succeeds anyway. Applied here: check fueling-lead-intake/worker.js and review-intake/worker.js's 400 paths before adding a required field — confirm it's truly unrecoverable (email format, honeypot), not defaultable.

5. Reply-drafter

scripts/draft_race_reply.py drafts Matti's reply to a "here's my race" email in seconds. Both welcome sequences promise a personal reply once the reader shares their race; this fuzzy-matches the name against either brand's race-data/*.json, computes real weeks-out via generate_race_dates.parse_date_specific, and picks an honest runway-bucket frame (full ≥10w / short 5-10w / keep-your-money <5w / passed / TBD) — editable draft, never an autoresponder. python3 scripts/draft_race_reply.py "SBT GRVL" [--brand road] [--name Jen] [--copy]. Use whenever an athlete replies with their race name — don't hand-draft.

6. The email worker contract

Every form must POST to its Cloudflare worker, never show success without a real submission (CLAUDE.md Email Capture Forms: honeypot, addEventListener not onsubmit). Sources: workers/<name>/worker.js + matching wrangler.toml (fueling-lead-intake/, review-intake/, training-plan-intake/, course-access/, course-nudge/, tire-review-intake/). Renaming a form field means opening the matching worker.js to confirm it reads that name — each worker validates a fixed source list and required keys; an unrecognized source or missing key returns a 400 the page may silently swallow. A field renamed on only one side is a silent order-killer per §4.

When NOT to use this

• Race scoring or ratings math beyond Rider Score display/threshold — scoring/data-pipeline work.
• Deploy mechanics (tar+ssh, cache purge, article SCP) — deploy skill.
• Writing sequence/template copy — load email-sequences instead; this file is the surface map and hard rules, not the style guide.
• Brand tokens, fonts, CSS — brand-tokens skill.