send-check

---
name: send-check
description: Runs the pre-send check on a finished marketing email and its recipient list - who it is going to, what it claims, whether the unsubscribe works and whether the sender is identified - and returns a pass or a numbered list of what to fix. Use in the last ten minutes before you press send.
---

# The ten-minute check before you press send, and the apology email you never have to write

You give this the finished email, exactly as it will go out, plus the name and size of the list it is going to and the offer's real terms. You get back either a clean pass or a numbered list of the things to fix, each with the sentence that is wrong, the rule it breaks, and what to put instead. It reads the email as a mailbox provider reads it and as a customer reads it, not as the person who wrote it reads it.

## What it does

1. **Say out loud who is receiving this, and on what basis, before reading a word of the copy.** Name the list, the count, the segment rule that produced it, and the lawful basis for each part of it. Two are acceptable: specific consent to marketing email, or the soft opt-in in regulation 22(3) of PECR, which needs the details obtained "in the course of the sale or negotiations for the sale of a product or service to that recipient", marketing of "similar products and services only", and a simple means of refusing given at collection and in every message since. If the answer is "it's the whole list" or "it's everyone in the booking system", stop here. That is the check. Everything below is wasted effort on a send that should not happen.

2. **Confirm the suppression screen ran, and say how many it removed.** A number. Not "yes". If the count is zero on a list of three thousand, the screen did not run, because on any list of that age somebody has unsubscribed. The ICO's guidance is that people who object go on a suppression list rather than being deleted, precisely so that "you can check any new marketing lists against it", and a send that skips that check is how a person who unsubscribed in March receives an email in September with your name on it.

3. **Find the unsubscribe with your thumb, on a phone, and click it.** Not find the link in the HTML. Open the test send on a phone, scroll to it, tap it, and see what happens. It must work without logging in, without a password, and without a second confirmation step. Then check the headers: Gmail's sender guidelines require that "Marketing messages and subscribed messages must support one-click unsubscribe, and include a clearly visible unsubscribe link", and RFC 8058 defines what one-click means technically. Section 3.1 requires that "The List-Unsubscribe header field MUST contain one HTTPS URI" and that "The List-Unsubscribe-Post header MUST contain the single key/value pair 'List-Unsubscribe=One-Click'", and section 4 requires that "The List-Unsubscribe and List-Unsubscribe-Post headers MUST be covered by the signature and included in the 'h=' tag of a valid DKIM-Signature header field". Yahoo's requirements add the operational half: "Honor unsubscribes within 2 days."

4. **Read the From line, the reply-to and the footer as a stranger would.** Regulation 23 of PECR prohibits sending marketing email "where the identity of the person on whose behalf the communication has been sent has been disguised or concealed" and "where a valid address to which the recipient of the communication may send a request that such communications cease has not been provided". Microsoft's own sender guidance puts the same point operationally, telling large senders to "Ensure the 'From' or 'Reply-To' address is valid, reflects the true sending domain, and can receive replies". So: send a reply to the reply-to address from a personal account and confirm it arrives somewhere a human reads. If the business is a limited company, the footer carries the registered name, the part of the UK it is registered in, the registered number and the registered office address, because regulation 25 of the Companies (Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2015 requires those particulars on business letters, order forms and websites, and a marketing email is the modern form of the first of those.

5. **Test every claim in the email against something you could show an inspector.** Rule 3.1 of the CAP Code is that "Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so", and rule 3.3 prohibits omitting material information "including providing such information in a way that is unclear or untimely, or in a way that the consumer is unlikely to see or hear it". Go line by line. "Award winning" needs the award and the year. "Locally sourced" needs the farm. "Our best ever" needs to be defensible or cut. And the one that catches hospitality hardest: rule 3.23 forbids describing something as "free", "gratis", "without charge" or similar "if the consumer has to pay anything other than the unavoidable cost of responding and collecting or paying for delivery of the item". A free glass of fizz with two courses is not free.

6. **Check the offer's conditions are in the email, not only behind a link.** CAP rule 8.17 requires that promotions "communicate all applicable significant conditions or information where the omission of such conditions or information is likely to mislead", and lists what usually counts: how to participate, the start date, "A prominent closing date, if applicable", any proof of purchase requirement, restrictions, availability, and the promoter's full name and correspondence address. Regulation 7 of the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 requires a commercial communication to "clearly identify as such any promotional offer (including any discount, premium or gift) and ensure that any conditions which must be met to qualify for it are easily accessible, and presented clearly and unambiguously". Minimum spend, excluded days, one per table or per person, whether booking is needed: all in the body.

7. **Prove the deadline is a real deadline.** If the email says the offer ends, the date must be in the email in full, and it must be a date you will honour. Rule 8.17.4.e allows a closing date to change only where "unavoidable circumstances beyond the control of the promoter make it necessary", and rule 3.30 states that marketing "must not falsely state that a product, or the terms on which it is offered, will be available only for a limited time to deprive consumers of the time or opportunity to make an informed choice". That rule is asterisked in the Code as a prohibited practice, which the Code explains means it does "not therefore require the application of a transactional decision test". A countdown on an offer you plan to repeat next month is the thing being described.

8. **Click every link in the test send, in the order a customer would, and check the day of the week.** Every link, including the logo, the social icons and the one in the PS. A booking link that points at last month's landing page is the most common single fault in a small venue's email, and it is invisible in a preview. Then check the dates in the copy against a calendar: "this Saturday" has to be a Saturday, "Thursday the 12th" has to be a Thursday. Open the test on a phone in dark mode as well as light, because white logos disappear and dark text on a dark background is a send you cannot recall.

9. **Send one seed and read it before the list gets it.** Send the finished email to yourself, to one colleague on a different provider, and to a Gmail address and an Outlook address if you have them. Read it end to end on a phone. Then check the subject line and preview text together, since the preview text is the second line every recipient reads and is usually left as whatever the platform scraped. Only when the seed is right does the real send go. If the platform has a scheduled send, use it for a time when somebody is available to answer the replies, because a promotional email produces phone calls.

## Then it checks

1. The output names the list, its exact count, and a lawful basis for every part of it, and no part reads "everyone" or "the whole database".
2. The suppression screen is reported as a number of rows removed, not as a yes or no, and that number is greater than zero on any list older than three months.
3. The unsubscribe has been clicked on a phone in a real test send and completed without a login or a second confirmation, and the List-Unsubscribe and List-Unsubscribe-Post headers are present with an HTTPS URI.
4. A reply sent to the reply-to address has been received, and the footer carries the trading name and, for a limited company, the registered name, number, place of registration and registered office.
5. Every factual claim in the copy is listed in the output beside the evidence for it, and every claim with no evidence beside it has been cut from the email rather than flagged.
6. Every offer condition appears in the body of the email, every stated deadline is a full date the sender has confirmed they will honour, and every link in the test send has been clicked and landed on the intended page.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is.
- Never pass a check on a preview. A preview pane is not a mailbox, and the three faults that reach customers most often, a broken link, a dead unsubscribe and white text on white, are all invisible in one. The evidence for a pass is a real message opened on a real phone.
- Never let a claim through because it is probably true. The person defending it later is the owner, in writing, to a regulator or a customer, and "the chef said so" is not the evidence CAP rule 3.1 has in mind.
- Never approve a send scheduled for a time when nobody is in. An email offering tables produces calls within the hour, and an unanswered phone turns a good campaign into a worse reputation than no campaign.
- This output is a working document prepared for the owner's solicitor or advertising adviser to check before publication. It applies published regulator and mailbox-provider guidance to one email; it is not legal advice on whether that email complies with PECR, the UK GDPR or the CAP Code.

## Built from
- The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003, regulations 22 and 23, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2003/2426/regulation/22 and https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2003/2426/regulation/23, made 18 September 2003, read 14 September 2026: the lawful-basis test in step 1 and the concealed-identity and valid-address prohibitions in step 4.
- Google, "Email sender guidelines", https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126, effective 1 February 2024 as stated on the page, read 14 September 2026: the one-click unsubscribe and visible unsubscribe link requirement quoted in step 3.
- Yahoo, "Sender Best Practices", https://senders.yahooinc.com/best-practices/, no publication date shown on the page, read 14 September 2026: the two-day window for honouring unsubscribes in step 3.
- IETF, RFC 8058, "Signaling One-Click Functionality for List Email Headers", https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8058.html, January 2017, read 14 September 2026: the exact header requirements quoted in step 3.
- Committee of Advertising Practice, "03 Misleading advertising" and "08 Promotional marketing", https://www.asa.org.uk/type/non_broadcast/code_section/03.html and https://www.asa.org.uk/type/non_broadcast/code_section/08.html, no publication date shown on the page, read 14 September 2026: rules 3.1, 3.3, 3.23 and 3.30 in steps 5 and 7, and rule 8.17 in steps 6 and 7.
- The Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002, regulation 7, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2002/2013/regulation/7, made 30 July 2002, read 14 September 2026: the promotional-offer identification requirement in step 6.
- The Companies (Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2015, regulation 25, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/17/regulation/25/made, made 8 January 2015, read 14 September 2026: the footer particulars in step 4.
- Microsoft, "Strengthening Email Ecosystem: Outlook's New Requirements for High-Volume Senders", https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoftdefenderforoffice365blog/strengthening-email-ecosystem-outlook%E2%80%99s-new-requirements-for-high%E2%80%90volume-senders/4399730, published 2 April 2025 and updated 30 April 2025, read 14 September 2026: the valid From and Reply-To requirement quoted in step 4.

# send-check

## You are given
One finished marketing email for a UK hospitality business, exactly as it will go out: the HTML file or export, the plain-text part, the subject line and preview text, and the raw headers from a seed send if one has been done. Plus the name, count and segment rule of the list it is going to; the suppression screen report with the number of rows it removed; the offer's real terms as the owner has written them; any evidence documents behind claims in the copy, such as an award certificate, a supplier invoice or a menu; and the business's registered company details. You have network access to resolve the links in the email.

## Produce
Write into a `./send-check-output/` folder:

1. `send-check-report.md` - one printable page. Its first line is exactly one of `ITEMS TO FIX: <n>` or `NO ITEMS FOUND. A PERSON MUST STILL DECIDE WHETHER TO SEND.` Then the numbered items from `findings.csv`, each with the exact text from the email, what was found, and what to put instead. Then the contents of `human-actions.md`. The words approved, cleared, signed off, passed and ready to send appear nowhere in it.
2. `findings.csv` with these columns in this order: `item_no`, `check`, `where_in_the_email`, `exact_text_from_the_email`, `what_was_found`, `rule_or_requirement_cited`, `what_to_put_instead`, `evidence_seen`, `status`. `status` is exactly one of `fix`, `confirm with a person`, `no item found`, `not checkable without a human test send`.
3. `list-basis.csv` with columns: `list_or_segment_name`, `count`, `segment_rule_as_supplied`, `lawful_basis`, `count_on_that_basis`, `source_file`. `lawful_basis` is exactly one of `consent`, `soft-opt-in-PECR-22(3)`, `not stated`. Plus a final row labelled `TOTAL` and a row labelled `SUPPRESSION ROWS REMOVED` carrying the number read from the supplied screen report.
4. `links.csv` with columns: `link_text`, `href`, `where_in_the_email`, `http_status`, `final_url_after_redirects`, `matches_intended_page`, `checked_at`. One row per link including the logo, every image link, the social icons and any link in the PS. `matches_intended_page` is `yes`, `no` or `no intended page supplied`.
5. `headers.csv` with columns: `header`, `value_as_returned`, `present`, `meets_requirement`, `requirement_cited`. Rows in exactly this order: `From`, `Reply-To`, `List-Unsubscribe`, `List-Unsubscribe-Post`, `DKIM-Signature h= tag`. `value_as_returned` is the raw header, never reformatted or summarised. Where no seed send was supplied, `present` reads `no seed send supplied` and `meets_requirement` reads `not checkable without a human test send`.
6. `claims.csv` with columns: `claim_text_verbatim`, `where_in_the_email`, `claim_type`, `evidence_supplied`, `evidence_source_file`, `evidence_date`, `status`. `claim_type` is exactly one of `objective and substantiable`, `puffery`, `price`, `date`, `free or no-cost`. `status` is exactly `evidenced` or `no evidence supplied`.
7. `offer-conditions.csv` with columns: `condition`, `present_in_the_body_of_the_email`, `present_only_behind_a_link`, `exact_text_from_the_email`, `matches_the_owners_terms`, `owners_terms_source_file`. Rows in exactly this order: `How to take part`, `Start date`, `Closing date`, `Minimum spend`, `One per person or per table`, `Excluded days`, `Booking required`, `Proof of purchase required`, `Availability or limit`, `Promoter full name`, `Promoter correspondence address`.
8. `dates-in-copy.csv` with columns: `text_verbatim`, `where_in_the_email`, `date_it_resolves_to`, `weekday_it_falls_on`, `weekday_matches_the_text`, `source_of_the_date`.
9. `human-actions.md` - a numbered list of the things only a person can do, each with what to look for and what would fail it: tap the unsubscribe in a real test send on a phone and confirm it completes with no login and no second step; send a reply to the reply-to address from a personal account and confirm a human receives it; open the seed on a phone in dark mode and in light mode; confirm the owner will honour every stated closing date; confirm somebody will be in to answer the phone at the scheduled send time.
10. `gaps.md` - a numbered list of everything that could not be checked and why, including every missing input.

## Rules
- The output of this skill is a checklist for a human to act on. It is not an authorisation to send and never says a send may go ahead. Never write approved, cleared, signed off, passed, compliant or ready to send in any file.
- Codex writes files and resolves links only. Never send an email, never trigger a test or seed send, never schedule, queue or pause a send, and never connect to a sending platform, a marketing API or a list to do any of those things.
- Never mark a claim `evidenced` without a supplied evidence document named in the row with its date. A claim the owner has told you is true, with no document, is `no evidence supplied`.
- Never mark a human action as done. Every item in `human-actions.md` stays open and its matching row in `findings.csv` reads `not checkable without a human test send`.
- Never pass a check on a preview or a rendering. A header row without a real seed send, and a phone or dark mode check without a person, are `not checkable`, never `no item found`.
- The suppression figure is a number read from the supplied screen report. Never write `yes`, never estimate it, and never leave it blank: with no report supplied the row reads `not supplied` and goes in `gaps.md`.
- Never rewrite the email. `what_to_put_instead` is a suggested replacement recorded in the findings file only, and no output file is a corrected version of the copy.
- Never cite a rule, a regulation or a provider requirement that was not supplied to you in the inputs or is not the one named in the check. Never invent a rule number.
- Every quoted sentence is copied from the email exactly, including its punctuation. Every figure traces to a supplied input file named in the row.
- Use British English, £ and DD Month YYYY dates. No em dashes.
- Every file ends with this line: this is a working document prepared for the owner's solicitor or advertising adviser to check before publication. It applies supplied guidance to one email, it is not legal advice, and it is not permission to send.

## Return
The absolute path of each file written, the first line of `send-check-report.md` exactly as written, the count of rows at each `status` in `findings.csv`, the list name with its count and the lawful basis breakdown, the suppression rows removed as a number, the count of links checked with every non-200 status and every mismatched landing page named, every row of `headers.csv`, every claim with `no evidence supplied`, every offer condition not present in the body, every date whose weekday does not match, the number of open items in `human-actions.md`, and the `gaps.md` item count.