Claude Code for Marketing: 45 Skills, 10 Agents, 7 Modules

What the Marketing Cockpit Is and How to Install It

Source: github.com/Littlpinguin/marketing-cockpit-template (Jessy Martin, battle-tested on real client accounts)

The Marketing Cockpit is a role-based AI marketing department that runs inside Claude Code. Clone it once per company, run /start-cockpit, and the wizard builds your brand doctrine, wires your tools, and hands you a ready-to-use marketing stack.

45 published skills. 10 specialist agents. 52 slide layouts. 20 ready-to-open page templates. 7 optional modules.

Three things that make it different from generic AI marketing:

1. A brand doctrine as single source of truth: voice, banned vocabulary, personas, design tokens, anti-AI-style rules. Every skill loads the doctrine before writing a single word.
2. Deterministic quality gates: a PostToolUse hook fires a mandatory brand check whenever content lands in a production folder. The harness enforces the workflow, not the model's goodwill.
3. File-based memory: an editorial calendar with statuses (idea, draft, to-validate, validated, published), per-channel archives and inventory files that prevent repetition and maintain auditability with no external database.

Real results from the maintainer's live clients:

• 478 clicks (+99%) and 12,600 impressions in the first 3 months of a freelance marketing site launched with this system
• 3 interactive lead magnets live at jessem.fr/diagnostic, jessem.fr/diagnostic-collab, and n2.help/tools/servicenow-expertise-report-2026
• Real LinkedIn carousels, brand visuals (Gemini image pipeline), and client reporting dashboards all shipped with this cockpit

How the cockpit is structured

Core (always on)                       Optional modules (/modules)
┌─────────────────────────────┐        ┌──────────────────────────────┐
│ 00-intel    live competitor watch │        │ 08-video        scripts, storyboards │
│ 01-brand    doctrine + tokens      │        │ 09-seo          content clusters, tech │
│ 02-strategy campaigns, OKRs        │        │ 10-automatisations n8n + Make flows  │
│ 03-social   posts, carousels       │        │ 11-reporting    client dashboards    │
│ 04-email    newsletters, drip      │        │ 12-acquisition  outbound + ads       │
│ 05-web      landing pages, magnets │        ──────────────────────────────┘
│ 06-design   slides, visuals        │
│ 07-events   webinars, sponsorships │
└─────────────────────────────┘

Model: Claude Sonnet 5 for production tasks. The cockpit is optimised for Sonnet 5's instruction-following and context window rather than Opus. Use Opus for the brand doctrine setup session and for any task requiring genuine strategic judgment.

Install

# Clone once per company or client
git clone https://github.com/Littlpinguin/marketing-cockpit-template
cd marketing-cockpit-template

# Copy environment variables
cp .env.example .env
cp .mcp.json.example .mcp.json

# Open Claude Code in the project folder and run the setup wizard
/start-cockpit

The wizard takes 30-60 minutes. It:

1. Fetches your website and analyses your existing content
2. Drafts your brand doctrine for your validation (voice, banned vocabulary, personas, design tokens, anti-AI-style rules)
3. Wires your tools (social APIs, email platform, CMS)
4. Sets up the editorial calendar and production folder structure
5. Hands you a ready-to-use cockpit that knows your brand by heart

Brand Doctrine: The Single Source of Truth Every Skill Loads

The brand doctrine is the single source of truth that every skill loads before producing any content. This is what separates the cockpit from generic AI marketing: every word passes a brand gate before it ships.

What the brand doctrine contains

The doctrine lives in 01-brand/ and is built by the /start-cockpit wizard. It contains:

Voice and tone: how the brand speaks, the energy level, the degree of formality, what emotion it leads with.

Banned vocabulary: the specific words and phrases that will never appear in any output. Includes AI-slop markers (em dashes, in today's fast-paced world, game-changer, leverage), branded exclusions, and competitor mentions.

Personas: who the brand is speaking to, what they care about, what problems they have, what they want to feel after reading.

Design tokens: colour palette, typography, spacing, visual style rules that the carousel and visual skills use.

Anti-AI-style rules: explicit instructions to avoid the patterns that make AI-generated content identifiable. Same adjectives, same rhythm, same openers. The doctrine names them and bans them.

Editorial inventory: what has already been published, by channel, with status tags. The skills read this before generating to prevent repetition.

The PostToolUse brand gate

A PostToolUse hook fires automatically whenever content lands in a production folder. It checks the output against the brand doctrine before the file is committed.

What it checks:

• Banned vocabulary: any flagged word or phrase causes the gate to fail and the content to be revised
• Voice consistency: output is checked against the voice and tone definition in the doctrine
• Anti-AI markers: the gate specifically looks for the patterns listed in the doctrine's anti-AI-style rules
• Editorial freshness: checks the inventory to flag if similar content was recently published on the same channel

This runs without you triggering it. The harness enforces the workflow. The model's goodwill is not the enforcement mechanism.

To update the doctrine as the brand evolves:

"Update the brand doctrine in 01-brand/.
We are no longer using [OLD TONE/PHRASE/RULE].
New rule: [DESCRIBE]
Update the PostToolUse gate to reflect this change."

The 45 Skills: Core Modules (00-07)

The 45 published skills are organised across the 13 module folders. Skills trigger from natural language requests. You do not invoke them explicitly.

All 45 skills load the brand doctrine before producing any output.

Module 00: Intel (Competitive Intelligence)

Live competitor and market watching. The intel module runs continuously and feeds signal into strategy and content.

1. competitor-watch: monitors competitor websites, pricing pages, blog activity, and social posts. Diffs against baselines. Outputs a weekly competitive brief with what changed, what it means for positioning, and what to do differently.
2. market-signal: scans industry sources, newsletters, and forums for emerging trends. Surfaces opportunities before they are mainstream. Flags topics worth owning before the competition does.
3. audience-intel: analyses the brand's audience: who is engaging, with what content, on which channels. Feeds the persona layer of the brand doctrine with real behavioural data rather than assumptions.

# Trigger naturally
"What changed with our main competitors this week?"
"Is there a trend emerging in [INDUSTRY] we should be writing about?"
"Who is actually engaging with our content and what do they want more of?"

Module 01: Brand

Doctrine management and brand consistency enforcement.

1. brand-audit: reviews all published content across channels against the current doctrine. Surfaces drift: places where voice, vocabulary, or visual standards have slipped. Returns a ranked list of content to fix.
2. brand-refresh: when the brand evolves, this skill updates the doctrine, propagates changes to all relevant templates and skills, and logs what changed and when.
3. persona-builder: builds detailed audience personas from real data sources (Google Analytics, social analytics, CRM data if connected). Each persona includes pain points, desired outcomes, preferred content formats, and what makes them leave.

"Run a brand audit across everything we published last quarter."
"We're refreshing our brand voice. Here's the new direction: [DESCRIBE]"
"Build a persona for our primary LinkedIn audience."

Module 02: Strategy

Campaign planning, OKR setting, and editorial calendar management.

1. campaign-planner: takes a goal (launch, demand gen, awareness) and builds a full campaign plan: target audience, messaging hierarchy, channel mix, content sequence, timeline, and success metrics. Outputs a CAMPAIGN.md file.
2. content-calendar: builds and maintains the editorial calendar across all active channels. Status tracking (idea, draft, to-validate, validated, published). Anti-repetition logic reads the inventory before scheduling.
3. okr-builder: translates business goals into marketing OKRs with leading indicators per channel. Quarterly planning with weekly check-in structure.
4. brief-writer: produces creative briefs for any content type. Includes audience, objective, key message, supporting points, tone guidance, format requirements, and success criteria.

"Plan a campaign for our Q3 product launch."
"Build next month's content calendar across LinkedIn, email, and blog."
"Write a brief for our new case study series."

Module 03: Social Media

Posts, carousels, threads, and social scheduling.

1. linkedin-post: writes LinkedIn posts using the brand doctrine. Determines funnel stage, selects the right hook mechanism, applies 3-line paragraph rule, adds one CTA. Checks the editorial inventory before writing to prevent repetition.
2. carousel: builds multi-slide LinkedIn carousels and Instagram carousels as PDF or image sets. Uses the 52-slide layout library to select the right layout per message type (editorial, dataviz, diagram, proof, quote). On-brand with design tokens from the doctrine.
3. thread-writer: writes X/Twitter threads and LinkedIn article sequences. Formats for platform reading patterns, optimises the opening tweet/post for engagement, ensures each thread element works standalone.
4. social-repurposer: takes any content (blog post, video transcript, webinar recording, case study) and repurposes it across all active social channels in the brand voice. Produces a full set: LinkedIn post, carousel concept, thread, short-form caption.
5. community-responder: drafts replies to comments, DMs, and community posts in the brand voice. Flags which replies need human judgment before sending.

"Write a LinkedIn post about [TOPIC]."
"Turn this blog post into a 10-slide LinkedIn carousel."
"Repurpose this webinar transcript across all our social channels."

Module 04: Email

Newsletters, drip sequences, and transactional email.

1. newsletter: writes the weekly or monthly newsletter in the brand voice. Selects content from the editorial inventory that has not yet been featured. Includes a signature story, 3-5 curated items, and one CTA.
2. drip-sequence: builds complete nurture sequences for lead magnets, trial users, and post-purchase onboarding. Each touch has a specific goal, a distinct angle, and a soft or hard CTA depending on sequence position.
3. cold-email: writes cold outreach emails with signal-led personalisation. Uses the personalisation waterfall structure from the brief-writer. Under 100 words, optimised for mobile, no filler phrases.
4. email-subject-optimizer: generates subject line variants for any email. Tests across 5 mechanisms: curiosity gap, specific number, contrarian claim, pain recognition, stakes escalation. Returns 10 variants with the recommended one and the reason.
5. re-engagement: writes re-engagement campaigns for cold or churned subscribers. Different angle per touch, breakup email at the final touch.

"Write this week's newsletter."
"Build a 5-touch nurture sequence for people who downloaded our lead magnet."
"Write 10 subject line variants for this email."

Module 05: Web Content

Landing pages, lead magnets, blog posts, and web copy.

1. landing-page: builds complete landing pages from 10 ready-to-open HTML templates. Types: lead capture, product launch, webinar registration, waitlist, free trial, case study, event, agency, B2B services, premium. Each template includes hero, social proof, features, objection handling, and CTA sections. On-brand with design tokens.
2. lead-magnet: builds interactive lead magnets from 10 templates. Types include: diagnostic/quiz, ROI calculator, interactive report, checklist, comparison tool, assessment, scorecard, resource library, template gallery, decision tool. Each includes a capture circuit: landing page + form + nurture trigger.
3. blog-post: writes long-form blog posts optimised for search and for the brand voice. Includes SEO brief integration (target keyword, intent, structure), internal linking logic, and a meta description.
4. web-copy: rewrites or writes any website page: homepage, about, pricing, features, use cases, case studies. Leads with the ICP's problem, not the product's features.
5. case-study: writes client case studies in the problem-solution-result structure. Pulls the brand's social proof framework from the doctrine to ensure consistent proof formatting across all case studies.

"Build a webinar registration landing page for [EVENT]."
"Create an ROI calculator lead magnet for our [SERVICE]."
"Write a case study for [CLIENT NAME]."

Module 06: Graphic Design

Slides, visuals, and design assets.

1. slides: builds presentations using the 52-slide layout library. 7 layout families: opening, editorial, dataviz, diagrams, tables, proof, closing. The skill selects layouts by message type and reskins them with brand tokens. Outputs as HTML (browser, zero build step) or can be pushed to PowerPoint.
2. carousel-design: takes the carousel content from the social module and produces the visual layout. Applies the brand's visual identity: colours, fonts, grid, icon style. Outputs as PDF (LinkedIn native document format) or PNG set.
3. visual-brief: writes a detailed brief for any visual asset: social post visual, banner, infographic, thumbnail, event graphic. Includes dimensions, colour palette, typography, image direction, copy overlay, and file format requirements.
4. image-generator: integrates with the Gemini image generation pipeline to produce on-brand visuals from a visual brief. Not a generic image request, a structured brief-to-image workflow that applies the brand doctrine's design tokens.
5. brand-visual-pack: produces a set of branded templates for recurring needs: LinkedIn post visual, story template, email header, event banner, bio card. One run produces the full set.

"Build a pitch deck for [PURPOSE]."
"Design the visual layout for this carousel content."
"Generate branded visuals for this week's LinkedIn posts."

Module 07: Events

Webinars, sponsorships, and in-person events.

1. webinar-planner: plans the full webinar: topic and title, speaker briefing, run-of-show, slide deck brief, registration page brief, email sequence (invite, reminder, day-of, replay), and post-event follow-up.
2. event-content: produces all content around an event: pre-event social posts, live-tweeting script, post-event recap, highlight carousel, speaker quote graphics.
3. sponsorship-brief: writes the sponsorship proposal for any event: what the brand wants, what it offers, success metrics, and the ask.

"Plan a webinar on [TOPIC] for [AUDIENCE]."
"Produce all content for our attendance at [EVENT]."
"Write a sponsorship proposal for [EVENT]."

The 45 Skills: Optional Modules (08-12) + 4 Incoming Animation Skills

Optional modules activated via /modules. Each module adds skills on top of the core 7 modules.

Module 08: Video

1. video-script: writes full video scripts for YouTube, LinkedIn video, and webinar recordings. Includes hook (first 5 seconds), main narrative, B-roll suggestions, and outro CTA.
2. storyboard: produces a shot-by-shot storyboard brief for any video. Describes each scene: visual, voiceover text, on-screen text, duration, transition.
3. short-form-video: writes scripts and production briefs for short-form content: Reels, Shorts, TikTok. Hook in the first frame, narrative arc under 60 seconds, CTA in the final 5 seconds.
4. video-repurposer: takes a long-form video transcript and produces all derivative assets: blog post, newsletter section, social clips brief, quote graphics, short-form scripts.

"Write a script for a 10-minute YouTube video about [TOPIC]."
"Turn this webinar transcript into short-form video scripts."
"Storyboard this product demo video."

Module 09: SEO

1. content-cluster: builds a topical authority map for a target subject. Identifies pillar content, supporting cluster articles, and the internal linking structure. Prioritises by search volume and competitive difficulty.
2. seo-brief: writes a full SEO brief for any article: target keyword, search intent, SERP analysis, recommended structure (H1, H2s, H3s), word count range, internal links, and meta description template.
3. technical-seo-audit: audits the site for technical issues: crawlability, indexation, page speed, Core Web Vitals, structured data, canonical tags, redirect chains. Prioritises fixes by traffic impact.
4. aeo-optimiser: optimises content for Answer Engine Optimisation: checks whether the content appears in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini for target queries. Identifies the missing E-E-A-T signals and rewrites to improve AI search visibility.
5. keyword-research: researches target keywords for any topic or page. Returns volume, difficulty, intent classification, and 3-5 questions the content should answer.

"Build a content cluster on [TOPIC]."
"Write an SEO brief for an article targeting [KEYWORD]."
"Audit our site's technical SEO issues and prioritise the fixes."

Module 10: Automatisations

1. n8n-workflow-builder: designs and documents n8n workflows for marketing automation tasks: lead routing, CRM sync, campaign triggers, newsletter automation, social scheduling. Outputs a workflow specification ready to build.
2. make-workflow-builder: same as n8n-workflow-builder but for Make.com. Covers modules, connections, filters, and error handling.
3. automation-audit: reviews existing automation workflows for gaps, failure points, and redundancy. Returns a prioritised improvement plan.

"Design an n8n workflow that sends a nurture email when someone downloads our lead magnet."
"Map out a Make automation for our monthly reporting."
"Audit our current automation setup and tell me what's missing."

Module 11: Reporting

1. client-dashboard: builds a static, brand-styled reporting dashboard deployed on the client's own site. Plain FTP, access code, monthly JSON snapshots, written analysis. No SaaS subscription required.
2. performance-report: writes the monthly marketing performance report. Pulls data from connected analytics tools, formats it into a narrative (what worked, what did not, what to do next month), and produces the report as a branded document.
3. attribution-model: builds a simple attribution model for the brand's marketing activities. Defines which channels get credit for conversions and how to interpret multi-touch attribution without a paid analytics platform.

"Build the client reporting dashboard for [CLIENT]."
"Write the monthly performance report for [MONTH]."
"Help me understand which channels are actually driving our conversions."

Module 12: Acquisition

1. outbound-campaign: builds a complete outbound campaign: ICP definition, list criteria, personalisation waterfall, 3-touch sequence, subject line variants, and push to sequencer. All copy passes the brand gate.
2. paid-ads-brief: writes creative briefs for paid campaigns on LinkedIn, Meta, and Google. Includes audience targeting, ad format, headline variants, body copy, CTA, and success metrics.

"Build an outbound campaign targeting [ICP]."
"Write ad creative briefs for our LinkedIn campaign promoting [OFFER]."

The 10 Specialist Agents and Their Roles

The 10 specialist agents are Claude Code subagents that handle complex multi-step workflows. Each agent operates as a role within the marketing team.

The 10 agents and what they do

1. Marketing Director: the orchestrator. Plans campaigns, coordinates which skills to invoke in which order, reviews output quality against the doctrine. The top-level agent you talk to for strategic requests.
2. Content Strategist: builds content plans, editorial calendars, and topic clusters. Reads the intel module before planning to ensure content responds to market signals.
3. Social Media Manager: runs the social module. Manages the content calendar for social, briefs the design module for visual assets, and schedules posts via connected platform APIs.
4. Email Marketing Manager: runs the email module. Manages the newsletter schedule, drip sequences, and cold outreach. Monitors open rates and reply rates from connected email platform.
5. SEO Specialist: runs the SEO module. Maintains the content cluster map, briefs blog posts against keyword targets, monitors technical SEO, and tracks AEO visibility.
6. Web Developer: builds and updates landing pages and lead magnets from the template library. Deploys to the connected hosting environment. Runs the PostToolUse gate on all web assets.
7. Graphic Designer: produces all visual assets using the design module. Applies brand tokens consistently. Coordinates with the Gemini image pipeline for AI-generated visuals.
8. Data Analyst: runs the reporting module. Pulls data from connected analytics sources, interprets trends, writes the performance narrative, and builds the client dashboard.
9. Events Manager: plans and executes the events module. Coordinates the full content suite around webinars and in-person events.
10. Growth Hacker: runs the acquisition module. Outbound campaigns, paid ads briefs, referral programmes, and conversion optimisation.

# Talk to the Marketing Director for strategic requests
"Plan our Q4 marketing strategy."
"Review this month's content output against our brand doctrine."

# Talk to a specialist agent for specific tasks
"Social Media Manager: build next week's social calendar."
"SEO Specialist: audit our technical SEO issues."
"Web Developer: build a landing page for [OFFER]."

# Let the director coordinate multi-agent work
"Run a full launch campaign for [PRODUCT]:
  - Content strategy for the month before launch
  - Landing page and lead magnet
  - Email sequence
  - Social content calendar
  - Slide deck for sales"

52 Slide Layouts and 20 Page Templates

The cockpit ships with 52 slide layouts and 20 ready-to-open page templates. All templates are HTML files that open in a browser with zero build step.

52 slide layouts

7 layout families:

Opening: cover slides, agenda slides, speaker bio slides

Editorial: section headers, text-heavy content slides, pull quote slides

Dataviz: waterfall charts, bar charts, line charts, scatter plots

Diagrams: process flows, comparison frameworks, 2x2 matrices, timelines

Tables: feature comparison, pricing, metrics dashboards

Proof: client logos, testimonials, case study results, statistics

Closing: CTA slides, next steps, thank you, contact

Each slide carries its own usage note in the self-documenting catalogue. The slides skill selects the right layout for the message type and reskins it with your brand tokens.

The catalogue itself is a browsable presentation you can open in any browser to preview every layout before using it.

20 page templates

10 landing page templates:

• B2B services landing page
• Product launch page
• Webinar registration page
• Waitlist page (dark premium style)
• Free trial page
• Case study page
• Event page
• Agency page
• Lead capture page
• Premium/luxury product page

10 interactive lead magnet templates:

• Marketing/AI potential diagnostic quiz
• ROI calculator
• Interactive industry report
• Content maturity assessment
• Competitive readiness scorecard
• Decision tool
• Checklist builder
• Comparison tool
• Template gallery
• Resource library

All templates include the capture circuit: the landing page, a form, and a nurture trigger. The lead magnet templates follow the reverse lead magnet model (value delivered immediately, form gates the full report or results).

Quick Reference: All 45 Skills, Community Skills, and Trigger Phrases

Everything from this playbook in one place. Skill count corrected from author's blog (jessem.fr, July 2026): 45 published skills, 4 incoming animation skills = 49 soon. The n8n module has 3 dedicated skills (n8n-builder, n8n-audit, n8n-debugger). Make.com is not a skill in this cockpit. Qdrant was removed in v2.

Install and setup

# Clone once per company or client
git clone https://github.com/Littlpinguin/marketing-cockpit-template
cd marketing-cockpit-template
cp .env.example .env
cp .mcp.json.example .mcp.json

# Open Claude Code and run the setup wizard (30-60 min)
/start-cockpit

# Wire your tools (calendar, email, CRM, social scheduling, analytics)
/tools-setup

# Activate optional modules
/modules

The 45 published skills: full table

#	Skill	Module	What it does
1	competitor-watch	00-intel	Weekly competitive brief: what changed, what it means, what to do
2	market-signal	00-intel	Emerging trend scanning across industry sources
3	audience-intel	00-intel	Audience behaviour analysis from real channel data
4	brand-audit	01-brand	Reviews all published content for doctrine drift
5	brand-refresh	01-brand	Updates doctrine and propagates changes to all skills and templates
6	persona-builder	01-brand	Builds audience personas from real analytics data
7	campaign-planner	02-strategy	Full campaign plan: messaging, channel mix, timeline, success metrics
8	content-calendar	02-strategy	Editorial calendar with status tracking and anti-repetition logic
9	okr-builder	02-strategy	Marketing OKRs with leading indicators per channel
10	brief-writer	02-strategy	Creative briefs for any content type
11	linkedin-post	03-social	LinkedIn posts: hook selection, brand gate, editorial inventory check
12	carousel	03-social	Multi-slide carousels using the 52-layout library (PDF or PNG)
13	thread-writer	03-social	X/Twitter threads and LinkedIn article sequences
14	social-repurposer	03-social	Repurposes any content across all active social channels
15	community-responder	03-social	Replies to comments and DMs in brand voice
16	newsletter	04-email	Weekly/monthly newsletter pulled from editorial inventory
17	drip-sequence	04-email	Complete nurture sequences for lead magnets, trials, post-purchase
18	cold-email	04-email	Signal-led cold outreach under 100 words, optimised for mobile
19	email-subject-optimizer	04-email	10 subject line variants across 5 mechanisms
20	re-engagement	04-email	Re-engagement campaigns for cold or churned subscribers
21	landing-page	05-web	Landing pages from 10 HTML templates (B2B, launch, webinar, waitlist, etc.)
22	lead-magnet	05-web	Interactive lead magnets from 10 templates with full capture circuit
23	blog-post	05-web	Long-form posts with SEO brief integration and internal linking logic
24	web-copy	05-web	Rewrites any website page ICP-first
25	case-study	05-web	Client case studies in problem-solution-result structure
26	slides	06-design	Presentations from 52-layout library with Playwright QA before PDF export
27	carousel-design	06-design	Visual layout for carousels matching brand design tokens
28	visual-brief	06-design	Design briefs for any visual asset (social, banner, thumbnail, etc.)
29	image-generator	06-design	Brand-doctrine-led Gemini image pipeline
30	brand-visual-pack	06-design	Full branded template set: LinkedIn, story, email header, event banner
31	webinar-planner	07-events	Full webinar plan: topic, deck brief, email sequence, follow-up
32	event-content	07-events	All content around an event: pre, live, post, highlight carousel
33	sponsorship-brief	07-events	Sponsorship proposals
34	video-script	08-video	Full video scripts with hook, B-roll suggestions, and outro CTA
35	storyboard	08-video	Shot-by-shot storyboard brief
36	short-form-video	08-video	Reels, Shorts, TikTok scripts under 60 seconds
37	video-repurposer	08-video	All derivative assets from a long-form video transcript
38	content-cluster	09-seo	Topical authority map: pillar + cluster articles + internal linking
39	seo-brief	09-seo	Full SEO brief: keyword, intent, structure, word count, meta
40	technical-seo-audit	09-seo	Crawlability, Core Web Vitals, structured data, redirects
41	aeo-optimiser	09-seo	Answer Engine Optimisation for ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini
42	keyword-research	09-seo	Target keywords with volume, difficulty, intent classification
43	n8n-builder	10-automatisations	Designs and builds n8n workflows using a 5-phase method + 5,100 template library
44	n8n-audit	10-automatisations	Audits existing n8n workflows for gaps, failure points, redundancy
45	n8n-debugger	10-automatisations	Debugs broken n8n workflows: failure node, cause, fix

Note: Skills 43-45 replace what would have been a Make.com skill. The cockpit uses n8n (self-hosted) for automation and MCP connectors for Google Ads and Lemlist. Make.com is not part of this cockpit.

Reporting and acquisition skills live in modules 11 and 12 but are not individually numbered in the published v2.1 count. They include: client-dashboard (static HTML, no SaaS subscription), performance-report (monthly narrative report), attribution-model, outbound-campaign (ICP, waterfall, 3-touch sequence), and paid-ads-brief (LinkedIn, Meta, Google). These are activated via /modules.

The 6 aggregated community skills

These are installed from MIT-licensed community repos during /start-cockpit. Each is wired to the brand doctrine so outputs are on-brand even though the skills are community-sourced.

Skill	Repo	What it brings
claude-seo	AgriciDaniel/claude-seo	25 sub-skills, 18 sub-agents: technical audit, E-E-A-T, schema, GEO/AEO, backlinks, local SEO, semantic clustering
claude-blog	AgriciDaniel/claude-blog	30 sub-skills, 5 agents, 5-gate delivery contract (brief, draft, quality score, AI detection, fact check) before publishing
claude-ads	AgriciDaniel/claude-ads	250+ checks across Google, Meta, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, Microsoft, Apple Ads with weighted scoring
ui-ux-pro-max	Community (MIT)	161 colour palettes, 57 typography pairings, 99 UX guidelines across 10 stacks
taste-skill	Leonxlnx (~56,700 stars)	Prevents AI visual slop by tuning 3 dials: variance, movement, density
frontend-design	Anthropic/community	Art direction for landing pages to avoid default AI visual patterns

The 4 incoming animation skills (unpublished, v2.2)

Sourced from claudedesignskills (freshtechbro, MIT). Not yet merged as of July 2026. Once published, total skill count goes from 45 to 49.

Skill	What it does
animation-gsap	Scroll-driven animations using GSAP. Correct patterns, performance-safe, no jank.
animation-animejs	Lightweight UI micro-interactions using anime.js.
animation-lottie	Embeds Lottie animations from After Effects exports. Correct implementation.
animation-scroll-reveal	Progressive reveal tied to scroll position. Proper scroll storytelling, not generic slide-in.

Key trigger phrases

# Brand and strategy
"Run a brand audit."
"Plan a campaign for [GOAL]."
"Build next month's content calendar."
"Write a brief for [CONTENT TYPE]."

# Social
"Write a LinkedIn post about [TOPIC]."
"Turn this [CONTENT] into a 10-slide carousel."
"Repurpose this across all our social channels."
"Draft replies to this week's comments."

# Email
"Write this week's newsletter."
"Build a 5-touch nurture sequence for [OFFER]."
"Give me 10 subject line variants for this email."
"Write a re-engagement campaign for cold subscribers."

# Web
"Build a landing page for [OFFER]."
"Create a diagnostic lead magnet for [ICP]."
"Write a case study for [CLIENT]."
"Rewrite our homepage copy ICP-first."

# Design
"Build a pitch deck for [PURPOSE]."
"Generate branded visuals for this week's LinkedIn posts."
"Design the visual layout for this carousel."

# SEO
"Build a content cluster on [TOPIC]."
"Write an SEO brief for an article targeting [KEYWORD]."
"Audit our technical SEO."
"Optimise this article for AI search results."

# Video
"Write a YouTube script about [TOPIC]."
"Turn this webinar transcript into short-form video scripts."

# n8n automation
"Build an n8n workflow that [DESCRIBE TRIGGER AND ACTION]."
"Audit our current n8n workflows."
"Debug this broken n8n workflow."

# Acquisition
"Build an outbound campaign targeting [ICP]."
"Write ad creative briefs for our LinkedIn campaign."

# Reporting
"Write the monthly performance report."
"Build the client dashboard for [CLIENT]."

# Multi-agent (through Marketing Director)
"Run a full launch campaign for [PRODUCT]."

What changed from v0.3 to v2.1

Dimension	v0.3	v2.1 (current)
Skills	8 generic	45 published (49 soon)
Specialist agents	None	10
Brand doctrine	Consultable file	Injected as step 0 of every skill
Editorial calendar	Simple markdown	Status tracking: idea, draft, to-validate, validated, published
Optional modules	None	7, activated via /modules
Vector memory (Qdrant)	Included	Removed in v2. Not useful below 50 posts/month. File-based memory is sufficient.
Setup command	/start-copilot	/start-cockpit

Why Qdrant was removed: the threshold for it being useful was 50+ published posts per month. No client account sustained that. The maintenance cost (monitoring indexing, debugging vector queries) exceeded the benefit for the vast majority of users.

The Real Skill Inventory: 45 Published + 6 Community + 4 Incoming (Sourced from Author's Blog)

Source: jessem.fr/blog/meilleurs-plugins-skills-claude-marketing + jessem.fr/blog/copilot-marketing-ia-devient-cockpit (Jessy Martin, Cockpit author, July 2026)

The cockpit has 45 confirmed published skills as of v2.1, with 4 more in progress (animation skills, unpublished). The README says 50 but the blog confirms 45 current + 4 incoming = 49 soon. Skills are a mix of Jessy's own production-tested skills and community skills aggregated from MIT-licensed repos.

The 6 aggregated community skills

These are third-party MIT-licensed skills that Cockpit installs and wires to the brand doctrine and strategy foundations. They do not live in the Cockpit repo itself; they are imported during setup.

Skill	Source repo	What it brings
claude-seo	AgriciDaniel/claude-seo (MIT)	25 sub-skills and 18 sub-agents: technical audit, E-E-A-T, schema markup, GEO/AEO for AI search, backlinks, local SEO, semantic clustering. Used for keyword research on the cockpit's own articles.
claude-blog	AgriciDaniel/claude-blog (MIT)	30 sub-skills, 5 agents, a 5-gate delivery contract (validated brief, draft, quality scoring, AI detection, fact verification) before any post publishes.
claude-ads	AgriciDaniel/claude-ads (MIT)	250+ checks across Google, Meta, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, Microsoft, and Apple Ads, with weighted scoring and a prioritised action plan.
ui-ux-pro-max	Community (MIT)	50+ styles, 161 colour palettes, 57 typography pairings, 99 UX guidelines across 10 stacks (React, Next.js, Vue, Tailwind, shadcn/ui).
taste-skill	Leonxlnx (~56,700 stars, MIT)	Prevents AI-generated visuals from falling into the generic. Adjusts three dials: variance, movement, density.
frontend-design	Community	Art direction for landing pages to avoid the default AI visual patterns.

Installed and wired during /start-cockpit. Each skill loads the brand doctrine from 01-brand before executing, so outputs are on-brand even though the skill itself is community-sourced.

The 4 incoming animation skills (v2.2, unpublished)

Four animation web skills ported from claudedesignskills (freshtechbro, MIT). Not yet merged as of July 2026. Once published, the skill count goes from 45 to 49.

Skill	What it does
animation-gsap	Scroll-driven animations using the GSAP library. Correct patterns, performance-safe movement, no jank.
animation-animejs	Lightweight timeline animations using anime.js for UI micro-interactions.
animation-lottie	Embeds Lottie animations from After Effects exports. Correct implementation, no playback bugs.
animation-scroll-reveal	Progressive reveal animations tied to scroll position. Not the generic slide-in-on-scroll but proper scroll storytelling.

The real n8n module (3 skills, not Make.com)

The n8n module contains 3 dedicated skills, not a generic automation builder and Make.com pairing. These skills build, audit, and debug n8n workflows using a 5-phase method and access a library of 5,100+ n8n templates.

Skill	What it does
n8n-builder	Designs and builds n8n workflows for marketing automation from a brief. 5-phase method. References the 5,100+ template library for starting points.
n8n-audit	Audits existing n8n workflows for gaps, failure points, and redundancy. Returns a prioritised improvement plan.
n8n-debugger	Debugs broken or misbehaving n8n workflows. Identifies the failure node, explains why, and fixes it.

The n8n workflows feed the 00-intel/ folder continuously: competitive monitoring, newsletter automation, social scheduling, and performance data. The module includes a VPS self-hosting guide for n8n.

For paid advertising and outbound, the cockpit uses MCP connectors rather than custom scripts:

• Google Ads via MCP for SEA campaign audit and optimisation
• Lemlist via MCP for outbound sequence sending and deliverability

All connectors are configured in .mcp.json (never committed, secrets stored locally).

The comparable repos (for context)

From Jessy's July 2026 panorama of marketing skill repos:

Repo	Stars	What it covers
coreyhaines31/marketingskills	~36,300	32 generalist skills: CRO, copywriting, SEO, ads, analytics, retention, growth, sales/RevOps. The most adopted. No multi-brand structure.
ericosiu/ai-marketing-skills	~2,800	Growth engine, sales pipeline, content ops, outbound, SEO ops, finance ops, deck generator, YouTube competitive analysis. Best for growth/sales depth.
aitytech/agentkits-marketing	562	18 agents, 93 slash commands, 23 multilingual training modules. More for upskilling a team than immediate production.
thatrebeccarae/claude-marketing	68	56 skills across paid media, SEO/AI, email, analytics, creation, reporting. Closest to a full marketing department focused on paid.
superamped/ai-marketing-skills	52	Ads, content, conversion, niche research (Reddit, communities, keywords).
Littlpinguin/marketing-cockpit-template	5	45 skills organised by brand (not by task), 10 agents, 7 optional modules. The only one that handles multiple client brands in parallel.

Key distinction: every other repo organises skills by task (SEO, ads, email). Cockpit organises by brand folder first. A skill SEO that knows nothing about your brand doctrine, a design skill that knows nothing about your editorial strategy — that is the problem Cockpit is the only repo in this list that solves.

Tool connectors the wizard sets up

The /tools-setup wizard detects what you already use and regenerates connectors accordingly. Nothing is imposed.

Category	Supported tools
Editorial calendar	Notion, Airtable, Trello, ClickUp, Google Sheets
Email platform	MailerLite, Mailchimp, Resend, Brevo, ConvertKit
CRM	HubSpot, Pipedrive, Odoo, Notion, Airtable
Knowledge base	Outline, Notion, Confluence, GitBook
Social scheduling	Buffer, Hootsuite, Later, Typefully, Postiz (direct)
Analytics	GA4, Plausible, Fathom
Outbound	Lemlist via MCP
Paid ads	Google Ads via MCP
Automation	n8n (self-hosted, VPS guide included)