About this template
It builds the whole Smartlead campaign. Then it refuses to send it.
If you run cold email on Smartlead and the one step you will never hand to an AI is the send, this fork was built for you.
You know the motion. Import the list. Write the sequence. Personalize the opener. Check the inboxes are warm. Launch. Work the replies.
What you don't want is rebuilding all of that by hand every launch — or handing an agent your sending domain and hoping it doesn't blast 400 people with "Hi {{first_name}}."
This template runs that motion on Claude Code and stops dead at the send. Ask it to send anyway and it tells you to open Smartlead and press Start yourself. The refusal is the feature.
What the Smartlead AI operator does
- sequence-builder — creates the campaign in draft and saves a multi-step sequence with merge fields. Real subject lines and body copy, not placeholder text.
- opener-personalizer — one opener per lead, written from real enrichment: title, company, a funding or hiring signal. A lead it can't personalize gets flagged, not handed a faked line that torches your domain.
- deliverability-watch — warmup health, mailbox rotation, bounce risk. A plain go/no-go before you launch.
- reply-triage — sorts the reply queue into positive, out-of-office, not interested and wrong contact, then drafts your answer to the positives. You send it.
Everything it writes lands under ~/outputs/, on disk, yours to read before a word reaches a prospect.
What you supply: a Smartlead API key
- Claude Code login, or
ANTHROPIC_API_KEYat runtime SMARTLEAD_API_KEYfrom Smartlead Settings → API, exported as an env var on the VM and never written into a file
Sending and credits stay on your own Smartlead account, exactly as if you had clicked the buttons yourself. No markup. No mystery keys in the snapshot.
Your first five minutes
Fork it, export the key, and paste one real prompt:
Here's my leads.csv from Clay. Build a 3-step Smartlead campaign, write a personalized opener for each lead, and check my sending accounts are warm.
Read the sequence. Read three openers. Read the warmup verdict.
If they hold up, open Smartlead and press Start.
Honest limits of this AI cold email operator
One paste covers up to 400 leads — Smartlead's per-request maximum.
It never launches a campaign, so it is the wrong tool if you want autonomous send on day one. It is also the wrong fork if you want the Smartlead UI to stay your control plane: here you drive Smartlead from Claude Code, and the UI is where you go to press Start. And it assumes you already pay for Smartlead, because the sending is real and it happens on your account.
Clay Outbound Engine builds the list this template turns into a ready-to-launch campaign.
Cancel whenever and everything stays yours — the account, the sending, the sequences, the list. Your first purchase carries a 30-day money-back guarantee.