Outbound Strategy — Build Your Own Cold Email Infrastructure

The self-hosted alternative to Smartlead / Instantly / Lemlist. Own your sending layer, drive it with an AI agent, pay only for inboxes.

This is a Claude Code skill + a complete playbook (with runnable templates) for building an in-house cold-email / outbound system: connect your own SMTP/IMAP inboxes, source and segment leads, write sequences, send at scale with deliverability-safe caps + warmup ramp, auto-classify replies, and run it all autonomously with monitoring.

You don't rent a SaaS. You own the stack, the data lives in your own mailboxes, and an AI agent operates it for you.

What's inside

SKILL.md                     ← the master guide (start here)
references/                  ← deep-dives
  architecture.md  deliverability.md  engine-setup.md  lead-sourcing.md
  sequences.md     orchestration.md   monitoring.md    deployment.md
templates/
  accounts.example.json              orchestrator.config.example.json
  sequence.example.json
  scripts/  accounts.ts  tls.ts  extract-leads.py  enroll.mjs
            create-campaign.mjs  orchestrator.mjs  report.mjs
            test-connections.mjs  bootstrap-folders.mjs  cron-tick.sh  _shared.mjs
PRESENTATION.md              ← ready-to-record video script

The stack

Layer	Tech
Engine	outbound-tools (MCP server + CLI, TypeScript)
Transport	nodemailer (SMTP) · imapflow (IMAP)
State	IMAP keywords/drafts — no database
Lead segmentation	Python (csv, column-alias parsing)
Orchestration	Node scripts + cron (caps, warmup ramp, run-log)
Monitoring	Express dashboard + Telegram daily report
Reply classification	optional, Claude (Anthropic API)

Quickstart

1. Infra — buy secondary domains + inboxes, set SPF/DKIM/DMARC, warm up. → references/deliverability.md
2. Engine — clone outbound-tools, decouple it from the paid broker (one file). → references/engine-setup.md
3. Connect — accounts.json + node test-connections.mjs (all inboxes ✅).
4. Leads — python3 extract-leads.py ./leads ./out/leads.csv → segmented send-list. → references/lead-sourcing.md
5. Sequence — adapt templates/sequence.example.json. → references/sequences.md
6. Go autonomous — enroll → create-campaign → flip active:true → cron. → references/orchestration.md
7. Monitor — dashboard + daily Telegram report + bounce alerts. → references/monitoring.md
8. Deploy — €5/mo VPS + two cron lines. → references/deployment.md

Install as a Claude Code skill

Drop this folder into your skills directory (e.g. ~/.claude/skills/outbound-strategy/) and ask your agent to "build my outbound infrastructure." It will follow SKILL.md step by step.

Responsible use

Cold email is regulated (CAN-SPAM, GDPR, etc.). Only email people you may lawfully contact, always offer an opt-out, honor it instantly, and follow the laws of your and your recipients' jurisdictions. This project is for legitimate B2B outreach — not spam.

Credits & license

Engine: the open-source outbound-tools MCP server. This skill adds the decoupling, lead segmentation, autonomous orchestration, monitoring, and deployment layers. Not affiliated with Smartlead, Instantly, Lemlist, or Apollo. MIT licensed — see LICENSE.