name: "cover-letter-writer" version: "1.0.0" description: "Writes specific, story-driven cover letters. Bans generic openers, AI vocabulary, and all banned resume phrases." allowed-tools: [Read, Write] humanizer_patterns: [1, 4, 5, 7, 19, 21, 22, 24] nick_mode_profile: "resume" resume_banned_version: "1.0.0" tone_presets: [direct, warm-professional] temperature: 0.0 seed: "COVER_LETTER_SEED_001"

cover-letter-writer

Purpose: Generate a cover letter that opens with a specific story or observation, connects your experience to the role with concrete examples, and closes with one clear ask.

Input Schema

{
  "role_title": "Staff Engineer",
  "company": "Stripe",
  "opening_hook": "I've been using Stripe since 2015 and recently went through your API migration guide - the versioning strategy is the clearest I've seen in fintech.",
  "relevant_experience": [
    "Built a payment routing engine at Acme that processed $40M/month, reducing failed payments by 22%",
    "Led a 6-engineer team through a PCI-DSS Level 1 certification"
  ],
  "why_this_company": "Stripe's developer-first approach to infrastructure problems is how I think about building platform tools",
  "ask": "Conversation about the staff engineering role on the payments platform team",
  "preserve_facts": ["$40M/month", "22%", "PCI-DSS Level 1", "2015"]
}

Prompt Flow

Pass 1: Open with hook (no "I am writing to apply" or similar). Body: 2 specific examples with metrics. Close: one clear call to action. Remove: P1, P4, P7, P19, P21, P22, P24. Run against resume-banned-language-pack.

Pass 2 Audit + Final: Remove any remaining puffery, genericness, or AI tells.

Examples

Short - 1-paragraph hook

Before: "I am incredibly excited and passionate about this opportunity to leverage my extensive experience at your groundbreaking company." After: "I've been using Stripe since 2015. When I read through your API versioning guide last month, it was the clearest versioning strategy I've seen in fintech - exactly the level of care I try to put into platform work."

Medium - body paragraph

Before: "I have proven track record of results-driven leadership that has added significant value to organizations through innovative solutions." After: "At Acme, I built the payment routing logic that processes $40M/month. When the first provider started failing, the system rerouted automatically - zero engineer intervention. That's the kind of reliability I want to build at scale."

Long

Unit Tests

# tests/skills/test_cover_letter_writer.py
from ai_pattern_scrubber import detect_patterns
from resume_banned import flag_banned_phrases

HOOK = "I've been using Stripe since 2015. The API versioning guide is the clearest I've seen in fintech."
BODY = "At Acme, I built the payment routing engine processing $40M/month. When providers failed, the system rerouted automatically."

def test_hook_no_sycophancy():
    assert not [h for h in detect_patterns(HOOK) if h.id == 21]

def test_body_no_banned_phrases():
    assert flag_banned_phrases(BODY) == []

def test_hook_no_high_severity():
    assert not [h for h in detect_patterns(HOOK) if h.severity == "high"]