cold-email-list-quality

Cold Email List Quality — list scoring + dedup

Run before any campaign. Bad lists kill reply rates more than bad copy. This sub-skill scores the list across 6 axes, returns the rows to remove, and surfaces fix recommendations.

Activation

Loaded by:

• cold-email-weekly-rhythm — Monday's list refresh
• User invocation: "Score my list", "Check list quality", "Clean my prospect list"

Inputs

The skill accepts:

• CSV with at minimum: email, optional first_name, last_name, role, company, signal, signal_date, linkedin_url
• JSONL with same fields

If brand-config.json is loaded, the skill cross-references icp.segment, icp.role_targets, icp.exclusion_criteria, and psp.signal_anchors for scoring.

Scoring (6 axes, 100 total)

Axis	Max	What it catches
Dedup	20	Exact-match emails, near-duplicate same-company-same-person rows
Role-fit	25	Role title matches brand-config.icp.role_targets or known equivalents
Signal freshness	20	Signal age — fresh (≤14d) > recent (15-30d) > stale (>30d)
Email validity	15	Heuristic checks — RFC-shaped, no plus-extensions for B2B, no free-email domains, no role-account emails (info@, sales@)
Exclusion match	10	Row matches any brand-config.icp.exclusion_criteria → fail
Company-stage match	10	Company stage (from signal or heuristic) matches ICP segment

Output

# List Quality Score — <file>

## Overall: <0-100>/100

| Axis | Score | Issues |
|---|---|---|
| Dedup | <0-20>/20 | <N> duplicate rows |
| Role-fit | <0-25>/25 | <N> rows outside ICP role targets |
| Signal freshness | <0-20>/20 | <N> stale signals (>30d) |
| Email validity | <0-15>/15 | <N> invalid / free-email / role-account |
| Exclusion match | <0-10>/10 | <N> rows hit exclusion criteria |
| Company-stage match | <0-10>/10 | <N> wrong-stage companies |

## Rows to remove (<N> total)

| Row | Email | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| 12 | [email protected] | Free-email domain (B2B) |
| 14 | [email protected] | Role-account email |
| 22 | [email protected] (Engineering Manager) | Role outside ICP (target: VP+) |
| 27 | [email protected] | Signal stale (45 days) |
| ... |

## Fix recommendations (in order)

1. Remove the 12 free-email + role-account rows (immediate)
2. Re-pull signals for the 8 stale rows (today)
3. Tighten role-fit list — 14 rows are "Engineering Manager" / "Director"
   while ICP targets VP+. Consider adding "Director" if the ICP has
   shifted, or excluding these rows.
4. Run `cold-email-deliverability` on the sending domain before this
   list ships.

## Send-volume recommendation

With cleaning, the deliverable list is: <N - removed> rows.

Given warm-up state (`<warm_up_status>`), recommended weekly send
volume: <X> per day across <M> mailboxes = <X*M> per day = <X*M*5>
per week.

## Send the cleaned list

The skill writes `<file>.cleaned.csv` and `<file>.removed.csv` to the
project root. Operator can review before importing into Smartlead /
Instantly / etc.