# Personal outreach

Apply [`core.md`](./core.md) first. This file is the genre overlay for
email, DM, Signal, and text to people you actually know.

Landing pages can say "we." These messages are from one person. Default
to **I**.

Do not use this file to invent a relationship. Cold notes are a
different job: no fake shared history, no "loved your post about X"
scraped from a feed unless you did.

---

## Tone extras

Direct without being aggressive. Phrasing you would actually send, not
copy you would publish. Time saved and problems solved, not "transforming
the future of work."

---

## Principles

**Relationship first.** Lead with warmth and shared history before news,
asks, or context. Skip this on a thank-you or an in-thread reply; those
already have a relationship.

**Ask before you broadcast.** A genuine question beats a status update
when you are starting a thread. Invite dialogue; don't just transmit.

**One primary ask per message**, when there is an ask. Stacked asks
dilute each other. Pick the real one and let the rest be context. Do
not legislate a weekly quota; do not stack parallel favors (product
invite plus "please share this") on the same person in one burst.

**Links as context, not CTAs.** Drop them inline ("the site is at X")
rather than isolated on their own lines, which reads as marketing.

**Easy out**, when there is an ask. Make it cheap to ignore. "No stress
if the week's packed" is better than manufactured urgency. A close
friend and an in-thread reply do not need a permission slip. This is
the desired form of core's permission-slip offer: you are making a
favor cheap to decline, not apologizing for a public essay.

**Thank-you, specific, soon.** One line naming what they actually did.
That is what keeps the favor-budget refilling. A thank-you does not
need an ask.

---

## Banned in this genre

- "Hope this finds you well."
- "I'm excited to announce."
- Feature dumps. One sentence on what it is, then the ask.
- Upvote asks on Hacker News, ever. HN detects rings. If you mention a
  Show HN to a friend, no link and no ask. A substantive comment from
  someone who knows the domain is the only useful favor.
- Generic "let me know if you have any questions."
- Fake intimacy on a cold note.

---

## Shape of a message

When you are asking for something:

1. **Anchor.** Something real: last exchange, their world, a shared
   fact.
2. **Frame.** One or two sentences of what happened, in voice.
3. **Ask.** One thing, concrete, sized to the relationship.
4. **Out.** Permission to skip it.

Thank-yous and replies can be one or two lines. Rewrite per person.
Seeds are not scripts.

---

## Prompt phrasing (for an agent drafting a note)

Core register still applies. First-person "I." Lead with the
relationship when you are starting a thread. One ask, or none. Sounds
like a note you would send, not a landing page in an email client. Do
not invent shared history.