# Email Best Practices Skill

> Give an AI agent the operational knowledge to build production-ready email: authentication, compliance, deliverability, webhooks, and suppression.

The **Email Best Practices skill** gives an AI agent the operational knowledge to build a production-ready email integration — not just how to send one message, but how to keep a sending program healthy over time. It covers authentication, compliance, deliverability, and day-to-day operations.

Use this skill alongside the [MailBlastr skill](https://www.mailblastr.com/docs/ai/skill-mailblastr): that one teaches the agent *how to call the API*, this one teaches it *what a responsible sender does*.

## How to give an agent this skill

This is a reference *pattern*, not a package to install — capture the checklist below as a `SKILL.md` (or equivalent context file) in your repo and load it into your agent's context alongside the [MailBlastr skill](https://www.mailblastr.com/docs/ai/skill-mailblastr). The operational primitives it relies on already exist: [verified domains](https://www.mailblastr.com/docs/add-a-domain), [webhooks](https://www.mailblastr.com/docs/webhooks/overview), and [suppression lists](https://www.mailblastr.com/docs/emails/suppressions).

## What it covers

- **DNS authentication** — step-by-step setup of SPF, DKIM, and DMARC so receivers trust your mail. See [Add a domain](https://www.mailblastr.com/docs/add-a-domain).
- **Transactional vs. marketing design** — best practices for designing effective transactional emails (receipts, resets) and marketing emails (campaigns).
- **Regional compliance** — guidelines for CAN-SPAM, GDPR, CASL, and other regional regulations, including required unsubscribe handling.
- **Webhook event processing** — patterns for handling delivery notifications, bounces, and complaints. See [Webhooks](https://www.mailblastr.com/docs/webhooks/overview).
- **Suppression list management** — strategies for maintaining a healthy [suppression list](https://www.mailblastr.com/docs/emails/suppressions) to protect deliverability.

## The deliverability checklist

The skill encodes a checklist the agent applies before and during a sending program:

1. **Authenticate the domain** — Verify the sending domain and publish SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. Send only from a verified domain — MailBlastr rejects sends from unverified `from` addresses.
2. **Separate streams** — Keep transactional and marketing mail on distinct subdomains so a marketing reputation problem never blocks password resets.
3. **Honor opt-outs** — For campaigns, MailBlastr injects a per-contact unsubscribe link and RFC 8058 `List-Unsubscribe` header automatically. For transactional mail, sending is sender-driven — add your own opt-out where appropriate. See [Unsubscribe links](https://www.mailblastr.com/docs/emails/unsubscribe).
4. **Process events** — Subscribe to webhooks and react to `email.bounced` and `email.complained` events. Hard bounces and complaints auto-suppress the recipient; never re-mail a suppressed address.
5. **Watch your list hygiene** — Mailing addresses that bounce or complain damages your reputation. Let the suppression list do its job rather than stripping and re-adding suppressed recipients.

> **Warning:** Compliance is not optional. Sending marketing email without a working unsubscribe mechanism, or mailing recipients who opted out, can violate anti-spam law and will harm your deliverability.

> **Note:** Bounces and complaints are recorded on each email's [event log](https://www.mailblastr.com/docs/emails/managing) and forwarded to your webhooks. The skill teaches the agent to treat these as the source of truth for list health.