Instantly

Build me a focused lead discovery and outbound sequences workflow for the personal core of Instantly. Requirements:

- Use Next.js 15, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, Drizzle ORM, and a user-chosen transactional email provider. Model contacts, companies, activities, stages, and follow-up history; store source IDs and timestamps for each.
- Paid product context: Send low-volume sequences through user-owned inboxes with strict safety limits. Build only this DIY scope: Import a permissioned lead list, personalize low-volume sequences sent through user-owned inboxes, enforce strict sending limits, and track replies without supplying proprietary contact data.
- Show deliverability warnings, daily send totals, and a mandatory preview before activation.
- Import a permissioned lead list, personalize low-volume sequences sent through user-owned inboxes, enforce strict sending limits, and track replies without supplying proprietary contact data.
- Send low-volume sequences through user-owned inboxes with strict safety limits.
- Use a local web page with input, progress, review, and export views. Required input or access: legally obtained contact list; sending-domain authentication.
- Recovery: Record delivery failures and retries by message ID; never duplicate a send after restart.
- Acceptance: with one labelled sample, show the input, saved intermediate state, and exported result; verify this invariant: An opt-out suppresses every future step; retrying a timed-out send cannot silently duplicate it.
- Out of scope: email account network, warm-up, deliverability analytics, lead database, and scale; proprietary contact database. Keep this a personal, inspectable workflow.
- Include a README with setup, a sample input, required keys or permissions, data location, and the supported scope.

# AGENTS.md — Build guide for Instantly

## Project scope
Import a permissioned lead list, personalize low-volume sequences sent through user-owned inboxes, enforce strict sending limits, and track replies without supplying proprietary contact data.

Catalogue verdict: no. A consolation build is possible, but the paid product's decisive value sits outside a solo rebuild. For Instantly, send low-volume sequences through user-owned inboxes with strict safety limits. The hard boundary is email account network, warm-up, deliverability analytics, lead database, and scale, plus proprietary data, deliverability, and network effects.
Use the implementation prompt below to define the deliverable. Complete each phase's acceptance checks before extending the scope.

## Working agreement
- Inspect the repository and its existing instructions before choosing paths, dependencies or commands. Keep one coherent stack and explain changes to the proposed architecture.
- Plan a vertical slice that accepts a real input and produces the useful output described below. Persist only the state the prompt calls for; respect memory-only and upstream-managed workflows. Use fixtures only when they are clearly labelled.
- After scaffolding, document the actual install, development, check and build commands in README and keep them synchronized with the package or project manifest. Do not report commands as successful unless they ran.
- Work in small steps. At handoff, list implemented flows, checks actually performed, remaining blockers, and any credentials or provider setup the owner must supply.
- Do not publish, spend money, contact customers, delete source data or run irreversible migrations without the project owner's authorization.

## Prerequisites
- legally obtained contact list
- sending-domain authentication
- email provider credentials
- PostgreSQL
- public HTTPS endpoint

## Stack and architecture
- Use Next.js 15, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, Drizzle ORM, and a user-chosen transactional email provider.
- Model contacts, companies, activities, stages, and follow-up history; store source IDs and timestamps for each.
- Interface for this lead discovery and outbound sequences workflow: a local web page with input, progress, review, and export views.

## Security and data integrity
- Record delivery failures and retries by message ID; never duplicate a send after restart.
- Validate imported records and file paths; keep user data within the storage location named in the prompt.
- State the practical limit: email account network, warm-up, deliverability analytics, lead database, and scale.

## Agent implementation rules
- Project rule, data: Model contacts, companies, activities, stages, and follow-up history; store source IDs and timestamps for each.
- Project rule, behavior: Show deliverability warnings, daily send totals, and a mandatory preview before activation.
- Project rule, recovery: Record delivery failures and retries by message ID; never duplicate a send after restart.

## Optional agent skills and references
No installable skill is listed for this guide; use the project rules and the stack documentation.

Read the linked SKILL.md and its dependencies before adding a skill. Select only the skills matching this project's runtime and task; their documentation does not supply API access, credentials or approval to perform external actions. Pin the reviewed revision where the tool supports it. Follow the chosen agent's documented project-level installation mechanism.

## Distribution ideas
These are optional planning notes. Obtain the owner's approval before publishing or contacting anyone.
- Demonstrate this lead discovery and outbound sequences operation with sample or user-owned data: Show deliverability warnings, daily send totals, and a mandatory preview before activation.
- Show a concrete result or export: Send low-volume sequences through user-owned inboxes with strict safety limits.
- State the practical limit: email account network, warm-up, deliverability analytics, lead database, and scale.

## Engineering roadmap
1. Phase 1, architecture and data: Use Next.js 15, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, Drizzle ORM, and a user-chosen transactional email provider. Model contacts, companies, activities, stages, and follow-up history; store source IDs and timestamps for each.
2. Phase 2, implement: Show deliverability warnings, daily send totals, and a mandatory preview before activation.
3. Phase 3, implement: Import a permissioned lead list, personalize low-volume sequences sent through user-owned inboxes, enforce strict sending limits, and track replies without supplying proprietary contact data.
4. Phase 4, review and output: Send low-volume sequences through user-owned inboxes with strict safety limits.
5. Phase 5, recovery and acceptance: Record delivery failures and retries by message ID; never duplicate a send after restart. Verify this invariant with a saved fixture: An opt-out suppresses every future step; retrying a timed-out send cannot silently duplicate it. State the practical limit: email account network, warm-up, deliverability analytics, lead database, and scale.

## Paid-product capabilities outside this build
- email account network, warm-up, deliverability analytics, lead database, and scale
- proprietary contact database
- inbox warm-up network
- deliverability reputation
- large-scale enrichment and compliance tooling

## Implementation prompt
Build me a focused lead discovery and outbound sequences workflow for the personal core of Instantly. Requirements:

- Use Next.js 15, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, Drizzle ORM, and a user-chosen transactional email provider. Model contacts, companies, activities, stages, and follow-up history; store source IDs and timestamps for each.
- Paid product context: Send low-volume sequences through user-owned inboxes with strict safety limits. Build only this DIY scope: Import a permissioned lead list, personalize low-volume sequences sent through user-owned inboxes, enforce strict sending limits, and track replies without supplying proprietary contact data.
- Show deliverability warnings, daily send totals, and a mandatory preview before activation.
- Import a permissioned lead list, personalize low-volume sequences sent through user-owned inboxes, enforce strict sending limits, and track replies without supplying proprietary contact data.
- Send low-volume sequences through user-owned inboxes with strict safety limits.
- Use a local web page with input, progress, review, and export views. Required input or access: legally obtained contact list; sending-domain authentication.
- Recovery: Record delivery failures and retries by message ID; never duplicate a send after restart.
- Acceptance: with one labelled sample, show the input, saved intermediate state, and exported result; verify this invariant: An opt-out suppresses every future step; retrying a timed-out send cannot silently duplicate it.
- Out of scope: email account network, warm-up, deliverability analytics, lead database, and scale; proprietary contact database. Keep this a personal, inspectable workflow.
- Include a README with setup, a sample input, required keys or permissions, data location, and the supported scope.

## Completion evidence
Demonstrate the prompt's acceptance scenarios against the scoped workflow. Include setup from a clean checkout and failure recovery. Check persistence across restart and export/restore only for the state the prompt says to store; for memory-only tools, confirm that temporary content is discarded as specified. Record actual results and remaining limitations. A detailed plan alone does not establish a working replacement.