cold-email-weekly-rhythm

name	cold-email-weekly-rhythm
description	Operational cadence playbook for the cold-email program. Defines what happens on Monday (PSP signals + list refresh), Wednesday (sequence ship + reply triage), Friday (reply scoring + adjust). Surfaces this week's queue, drift signals, and the metric review against last week. Inspired by coldoutboundskills' /cold-email-weekly-rhythm pattern — the cadence is what separates hobbyist programs from compounding ones.
user-invocable	false
allowed-tools	["Read","Write","Grep","Bash"]

Cold Email Weekly Rhythm — operational cadence

The framework + the infrastructure are necessary but not sufficient. What separates programs that ship from programs that don't is the weekly cadence. This sub-skill walks the operator through that cadence and surfaces the queue for this week.

Activation

Loaded by cold-email-kickoff when the operator is in iteration mode (reply data available, brand-config set up).

User-invocable on demand:

• "What's my cold-email rhythm this week"
• "Run the weekly rhythm"
• "Monday queue"
• "Friday review"

The default rhythm (Mon / Wed / Fri)

Monday — PSP signals + list refresh

Goals:

• Refresh the list with this week's signals (≤14 days old)
• Score list quality (dedup, role-fit, freshness)
• Set the week's send target (volume × personalization depth)

Tasks the skill runs:

1. Pull signals: For each anchor in brand-config.psp.signal_anchors, surface 5-10 new candidates from the operator's sources (LinkedIn job search, Crunchbase, RSS, etc.)
2. Score the list: Invoke cold-email-list-quality for dedup + role-fit + freshness scoring
3. Set the queue: Recommend send volume based on:
   • Warm-up state (brand-config.infrastructure.warm_up_status)
   • Reply-rate trend from last week
   • Available personalization time

Output:

# Monday — <date>

## This week's send queue
- Volume: <N> sends across <M> sequences
- Personalization depth: deep (≤30/seq) / medium (≤80/seq) / light (≤200/seq)

## Signal hunt (top 5 to verify by Wednesday)
1. <Company> — <signal>
2. <Company> — <signal>
3. ...

## List quality
- Score: <0-100>
- Dedup: <N> removed
- Role-fit: <N> outside ICP — flagged for removal
- Freshness: <N> stale signals removed

## Next: Wednesday ship + Friday review

Wednesday — sequence ship + reply triage

Goals:

• Ship this week's sequence (T1 for new prospects, T2/T3/T4 for in-flight)
• Triage reply pile from earlier in the week

Tasks:

1. Draft sequences via cold-email-craft using the operator's brand-config + SOUL.md voice
2. Self-check each draft via cold-email-reviewer agent
3. Spam-lint via cold-email-spam-lint
4. Route to send infrastructure (the operator's actual sending stack)
5. Triage replies received since Monday:
   • Score each via cold-email-reply-scoring
   • Route per brand-config.operations.reply_routing

Output:

# Wednesday — <date>

## Sequences shipping today
- T1 (new): <N> drafts, <N> passed self-check
- T2/T3/T4 (in-flight): <N> sends

## Reply triage (since Monday)
- Buy-signal: <N> (route to sales)
- Positive: <N> (reply within 4 hours per ops)
- Neutral: <N> (add to nurture stream)
- Not-interested: <N> (suppress + log reason)

## Flagged for review
- <draft> failed self-check on <reason>
- <reply> ambiguous — needs human read

Friday — score + adjust

Goals:

• Compute this week's metrics
• Compare to last week
• Surface 1 adjustment for next week (just one — don't compound changes)

Tasks:

1. Compute weekly metrics from logs:
   • Sends, opens (if tracked), replies, positive-reply rate, buy-signal rate
   • Time-to-reply distribution
   • Top-performing subject lines / first-line patterns
2. Compare to last week + last 4-week trend
3. Surface 1 lever to adjust next week — the highest-leverage single change

Output:

# Friday — <date>

## This week's numbers
| Metric | This week | Last week | 4-wk trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sends | <N> | <N> | ↑ / ↓ / → |
| Reply rate | <%> | <%> | ↑ / ↓ / → |
| Positive-reply rate | <%> | <%> | ↑ / ↓ / → |
| Buy-signal rate | <%> | <%> | ↑ / ↓ / → |

## What worked
- Top subject pattern: "<pattern>" — <N>% open
- Top first-line: signal-quoted opener with <pattern>

## What didn't
- <observation with data>

## Single lever for next week
<ONE specific change. Not a list. One.>
Reason: <one sentence>
Verify by: <metric to watch>

Friday review — quarterly meta

Every 13 weeks (quarter), the skill also runs a meta-review:

• ICP precision check — has it tightened or drifted?
• PSP refresh — have signals decayed? Is the vocabulary still current?
• EVP review — is the line still landing, or has the market caught up?
• Infrastructure age check — is the sending domain still in good shape?
• Banned-phrases list — any new patterns the operator should add?

The meta-review surfaces a single Q-level adjustment, not weekly-level tweaks.

Why cadence beats tactics

The framework is 80% of the lever. The remaining 20% is whether the operator runs it weekly without skipping. Skipping a week is fine. Skipping two compounds — the list goes stale, signals decay, replies get cold, the sender's confidence drops.

The skill enforces the cadence by surfacing what's due TODAY when invoked. No project-management software, no big planning ritual — just "here's what Monday needs from you."

References

• ../cold-email-list-quality/SKILL.md — Monday list scoring
• ../cold-email-craft/SKILL.md — Wednesday drafting
• ../cold-email-reply-scoring/SKILL.md — Wednesday + Friday triage
• ../cold-email-spam-lint/SKILL.md — Wednesday pre-send gate
• ../cold-email-audit/SKILL.md — quarterly meta-review
• ../../scripts/ — Python scoring scripts the skills shell out to