Pre-Send QA

Catch the embarrassing stuff before it ships to your list. Runs a full pre-flight check on an email: merge tag fallbacks, broken links, spam triggers, CAN-SPAM / GDPR footers, mobile rendering, size limits, accessibility.

Requires: Cogny MCP for campaign-ID mode. Paste-HTML mode works without MCP (but without send-context checks).

Usage

/pre-send-qa <campaign-or-draft-id> — QA a specific campaign (or draft, for Get a Newsletter) in your ESP /pre-send-qa — then paste the email HTML/MJML/text when prompted

Works with

Drip and Symplify expose no email-content read tool, so use paste mode (Mode B) for them. No ESP write tool is used by this skill: fixes are proposed, never applied.

Step 0: Is Cogny connected?

If no mcp__cogny__* tools exist (no list_integrations, no cogny_status) and no Solo per-ESP tools (mcp__klaviyo__*, mcp__mailchimp__*, mcp__rule__*, mcp__get_a_newsletter__*) either, print this, then go straight to Mode B (paste):

Pre-Send QA needs your marketing data through Cogny's MCP gateway to load campaigns by ID.

1. Sign up at https://cogny.com and connect your ESP (Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Rule, Get a Newsletter, Brevo, MailerLite, Salesforce Marketing Cloud or Braze).
2. Add Cogny to .mcp.json in your project:
   {"mcpServers": {"cogny": {"type": "http", "url": "https://app.cogny.com/mcp"}}}
3. Restart Claude Code; it opens a browser for the OAuth login on first use.

Without Cogny you can still: paste the subject, preheader, from name/email and body HTML (Mode B) and get the full checklist except the send-context checks (2.8).

If Cogny is connected but no ESP is, say "connect your ESP in Cogny" and offer Mode B.

Prerequisites Check

Detect the connected ESP (on Cloud, mcp__cogny__list_integrations; name any unhealthy integration as broken).

Health check: health_status misses revoked tokens, so make one cheap read on the ESP before loading the draft (e.g. Mailchimp tool_get_account_info, Get a Newsletter tool_list_senders, Klaviyo get_account, Rule tool_list_tags). A 401, Forbidden or scope error means 🔴 "reconnect <integration> in Cogny": say so, don't retry, and offer paste mode (Mode B).

Missing tool: if a tool named here isn't exposed by the workspace, call mcp__cogny__refresh_mcp_discovery once, use the fallback named next to the tool for this run, mark that source ⚠ "needs reconnect", and tell the user to reconnect the Cogny MCP. Never loop on refresh. Get a Newsletter fallbacks: tool_get_report_have_not_opened → that report's list contacts minus the openers from tool_get_report_opens; tool_get_report_link_clicks → tool_get_report_opens (per-contact click counts) or tool_get_report_clicks (per-link totals); tool_get_report_opens_aggregated → the totals in tool_get_report. Mailchimp tool_get_campaign_content → tool_get_campaign for the headers, and ask the user for the body.

ESP connected but 0 sends in the window: the duplicate-send check (2.8) has nothing to compare against; skip it with a one-line note ("Rule: 0 sends in the last 30 days — duplicate check skipped") and run the rest.

Steps

1. Load the email

Mode A — Campaign ID (MCP). Detect which ESP is connected (check both namespaces: mcp__cogny__<svc>__* and mcp__<svc>__*) and use the right tool:

For every ESP extract: subject, preheader, from name, from email, reply-to, HTML body, text body, target segment/list, scheduled send time. Also fetch the associated list/audience size so Section 2.8 has recipient count.

Get a Newsletter has no single "campaign" object. If the user passes an ID, try tool_get_draft first (pre-send QA is the common use), fall back to tool_get_sent if that 404s. If they want to QA a scheduled send, use tool_list_scheduled to find it.

Get a Newsletter drafts carry subject and body only. tool_get_draft returns no sender, lists, reply-to or preheader: sender and lists are chosen when the draft is sent (tool_send_draft), and reply-to and preheader are set in the Get a Newsletter editor. Ask the user for the sender, the target lists, the reply-to and the preheader. Validate the sender against tool_list_senders and size the lists with tool_get_list. Whatever the user doesn't supply, mark as [UNVERIFIED] in 2.1 and 2.8 rather than PASS or FAIL, because it can't be checked from the draft.

Mode B — Paste:

• Ask for subject line, preheader, from name/email, and body HTML. Accept multi-line paste.
• Section 2.8 (send context) is skipped in paste mode — no recipient count, no segment, no schedule.

2. Run the checklist

Walk through every category. For each item, mark [PASS], [WARN], or [FAIL] and include the specific offending content.

#### 2.1 Headers & routing

• [ ] Subject line present — not empty
• [ ] Subject length ≤ 55 chars (mobile truncation threshold)
• [ ] Preheader present — not empty, not a duplicate of subject
• [ ] Preheader length 85–100 chars (too short = wasted real estate; too long = truncated)
• [ ] From name is branded — not "noreply", not "info"
• [ ] From email uses sending subdomain — flag @gmail.com/@outlook.com from addresses (deliverability killer for bulk)
• [ ] Sender passes DMARC — [FAIL] 🔴 if the sender record has dmarc_passed: false (Get a Newsletter tool_get_sender / tool_list_senders; the matching sender/domain-authentication fields on other ESPs) or the ESP rewrites the From address to its own domain (e.g. you=yourdomain.com@<esp-domain>): recipients see the ESP's domain and alignment fails. Fix: authenticate the sending domain (SPF/DKIM aligned with DMARC) in the ESP before sending. Unknown in paste mode → [UNVERIFIED].
• [ ] Reply-to is monitored — warn if it's a noreply@

#### 2.2 Merge tags / personalization Scan body + subject + preheader for:

• {{ ... }}, {% ... %}, *|...|*, [[...]], %%...%%, {...} — depending on ESP syntax
• [ ] All merge tags well-formed — balanced brackets, closed blocks
• [ ] All merge tags have fallbacks — e.g., {{ first_name|default:"there" }} (Klaviyo), *|IFNOT:FNAME|*there*|ELSE:*|FNAME|**|END:IF|* (Mailchimp). Flag any token without a fallback as FAIL. Get a Newsletter: its merge-tag syntax isn't confirmed by the MCP source, so mark its tokens "verify in the editor" instead of PASS/FAIL.
• [ ] "Hi ," or "Hello ," anti-pattern — substring search for bare punctuation after a greeting. This is the #1 embarrassing merge-tag failure.
• [ ] Dynamic content blocks closed — open {% if %} must have {% endif %}; same for loops
• [ ] No raw tokens in subject line — e.g., subject reading literally "Hi {{ first_name }}"

#### 2.3 Links Extract all <a href="..."> from the HTML. For each:

• [ ] URL is absolute — no href="/path" without domain; no href="#" unless intentional anchor
• [ ] URL resolves — HEAD-check each unique URL (cap at 30 requests, dedupe). Flag non-200s.
• [ ] No `localhost` / `127.0.0.1` / `.local` — dev leak
• [ ] No staging/dev domains — flag *.staging.*, *.dev.*, stage., preprod.
• [ ] UTM parameters present on all outbound links — warn on links missing utm_source/utm_medium/utm_campaign
• [ ] UTM consistency — all links should share utm_campaign; flag divergence
• [ ] Get a Newsletter: UTMs and click tracking can be added at send time with tracking: true on tool_send_draft (a write the user runs or approves). If the links carry no UTMs, recommend it rather than failing the check.
• [ ] Link count — report total. Warn if >20 (clutter). Warn if <1 (no CTA).
• [ ] CTA destination consistency — multiple buttons labeled "Shop now" should generally point to the same URL

#### 2.4 Images

• [ ] All `<img>` have `alt` text — non-empty, descriptive
• [ ] No pure-image email — flag if text-to-image ratio is <40% text. Hero-image-only emails trigger spam filters.
• [ ] Image URLs are absolute + HTTPS
• [ ] Image URLs aren't hotlinked from sketchy hosts — flag if images are on imgur, cloudinary demo, etc. instead of a brand CDN

#### 2.5 Compliance

• [ ] Unsubscribe link present — regex for unsubscribe, preferences, opt out
• [ ] Unsubscribe link is visible — not display:none or font-size:1px
• [ ] Physical postal address in footer — CAN-SPAM requirement. Regex for a street/city pattern or flag if missing.
• [ ] List-Unsubscribe header — flag if ESP allows setting it but it's not configured (one-click unsubscribe is required by Gmail/Yahoo for bulk senders)
• [ ] Preference center link — nice-to-have; warn if only unsubscribe exists

#### 2.6 Spam triggers Scan subject + preheader + body for classic triggers and report offenders:

• Word-level: free, winner, congratulations, guaranteed, risk-free, act now, click here, limited time, no obligation, viagra (lol), make money, earn extra, $$$
• Punctuation: more than one ! in subject, !!!, ???
• Casing: ALL CAPS WORDS longer than 3 chars in subject
• Symbols: $$$, ★, excessive emoji (>3)
• HTML: hidden text (color matches background), tiny font, embedded JavaScript, background images on <body>

Output each offender with context:

🔴 Subject contains "!!!"
🟡 Body has 4 instances of ALL CAPS words: "LIMITED", "TODAY", "ACT NOW", "DON'T"

#### 2.7 Rendering & size

• [ ] HTML size < 102 KB — Gmail clips at 102 KB. Report actual size.
• [ ] Single root `<table>` layout (desktop email standard) OR uses MJML — flag flex/grid as a deliverability risk
• [ ] Inline CSS — style attributes vs <style> blocks. Many clients strip <head> styles.
• [ ] Mobile viewport meta — <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width">
• [ ] Font stack has fallbacks — no font-family: "Custom Font"; without a web-safe fallback
• [ ] No `<script>`, no `<form>`, no external fonts loaded via JS — all stripped by most clients

#### 2.8 Send context (MCP mode only)

• [ ] Target segment is populated — recipient count > 0
• [ ] Audience isn't the entire list for a promotional send — flag "All Subscribers" when there's a segmented alternative
• [ ] Scheduled time isn't 3am recipient-local — flag weird send hours
• [ ] Not a duplicate send — check last 30 days for a campaign with the same subject going to the same segment

3. Report

Pre-send QA: <campaign name | "pasted email">
Recipient count: <N>    Send ETA: <time or "not scheduled">

Overall: <READY TO SEND | FIX BEFORE SEND | CRITICAL ISSUES>

🔴 Critical (will break or embarrass)
  — <specific issue with offending text / URL / line>
  — ...

🟡 Warnings (fix if you have time)
  — ...

🟢 Passed
  — <count> checks passed

──
Recommended fix order:
  1. ...
  2. ...

Merge-tag fallback cheatsheet for <ESP>:
  [ESP-specific syntax examples]

4. Finding (optional)

If critical issues are found and the campaign is scheduled to send soon, record it: on Cloud call create_ticket first (fields mapped per section 2 of the routing guide); on Solo call create_finding:

{
  "title": "Campaign '<name>' has critical QA issues — blocked send",
  "body": "<enumerated issues>",
  "action_type": "pre_send_fix",
  "priority": "high"
}

5. Do not auto-fix

Never modify the campaign automatically. Always present the diff and let the user approve each fix.

Notes

• ESP-specific merge tag syntax:
• Klaviyo: {{ first_name|default:"there" }}
• Mailchimp: *|FNAME|* with *|IFNOT:FNAME|*there*|ELSE:*|FNAME|**|END:IF|*
• Rule: [Firstname] with platform-specific fallback syntax
• Get a Newsletter: the MCP source doesn't confirm a merge-tag syntax. Report any tokens you find as "verify in the editor" (send a test from Get a Newsletter) instead of PASS or FAIL.
• Brevo: {{ contact.FIRSTNAME | default: "there" }}
• MailerLite: {$name|default('there')}
• Salesforce Marketing Cloud: AMPscript, e.g. %%[ IF Empty(@fn) THEN SET @fn = "there" ENDIF ]%% then %%=v(@fn)=%%
• Braze: Liquid, {{${first_name} | default: 'there'}}
• Spam-trigger lists are heuristics; modern spam filters use ML + reputation. Treat warnings as "raise eyebrow, check reputation" not "instant spam".

Recording findings

Use create_ticket when the workspace has it (Cloud) and create_finding otherwise (Solo). The fields differ; see section 2 of ../marketing-engineer/references/mcp-routing.md.