HTML Email Playbook

email-playbook-mcp

Stop AI models from generating broken HTML email. This MCP server + CLI feeds them the patterns that actually render in Outlook 2007+, Gmail, and Apple Mail — drawn from the HTML Email Playbook.

Without it, your model invents flex and grid (no email client supports those), hardcodes table widths that overflow on mobile, forgets the VML fallback for Outlook buttons, and makes up footer disclaimers that weren't in your design.

With it, the model calls structured tools to pull the exact patterns from the playbook and composes emails using those, instead of guessing from training data.

🔒 No email permissions, no inbox access. This is a knowledge MCP — it returns playbook rules and HTML patterns. It never reads your mail, sends mail, or asks for Gmail/Outlook/SMTP credentials. Confusable with inbox-integration MCPs but it's a different category entirely.

Install

# Global install (standard)
npm install -g email-playbook-mcp

# Or run on demand without installing
npx -y email-playbook-mcp@latest

Safe to install

• One dependency — the official MCP SDK (@modelcontextprotocol/sdk), nothing else.
• No postinstall scripts — installing runs no arbitrary code.
• Read-only, no inbox — the tools only return playbook content. It never reads, sends, or touches email, never opens your inbox, and makes no network calls of its own.

Use it in Claude Desktop

Edit ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "email-playbook": {
      "command": "email-playbook-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop. The playbook tools appear in the model's tool list. Ask it to build an email and it'll call them automatically.

What happens under the hood

For an image-to-email or "build me a welcome email" prompt, the model typically calls:

1. list_categories                                    ← orient, page slugs
2. get_playbook_rules({ format: "checklist" })        ← every page's rules, ~16 KB
3. get_rule({ slug: "compatibility/responsive" })     ← just the pages it needs
4. list_components → get_component({ name: "buttons" }) ← components it needs
5. compose final HTML using those exact patterns

You don't write that prompt by hand — the model orients itself via the tool descriptions.

Use it in Cursor

Edit ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "email-playbook": {
      "command": "email-playbook-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Cline / Continue / Windsurf and other MCP-aware clients use the same shape — point a command entry at email-playbook-mcp.

Use it as a CLI

The same package ships a second binary for direct query + scripting:

$ email-playbook get-component buttons | jq '{name, slots, requires_vml}'
{
  "name": "buttons",
  "slots": ["text", "url", "background_color", "text_color", "width_px", "height_px"],
  "requires_vml": true
}

Other commands: list-categories, list-components, get-rules [category] [--checklist], get-rule <slug> [--examples]; add --md to get-rules / get-rule for readable markdown instead of JSON. The MCP tool names work as command names too (get_playbook_rules, get_rule, ...). Help text is generated from the bundled spec at runtime, never stale. Run email-playbook --help.

Run without installing globally:

npx -y -p email-playbook-mcp email-playbook list-categories

Tools

Tool	Returns
list_categories	The 4 rule categories with page counts and page slugs
get_playbook_rules({ category?, format? })	Rule pages: full (text + code, default, one category) or checklist (the rules to follow; leave out category for every page, about 16 KB)
get_rule({ slug, include_examples? })	One rule page with its code (compatibility/responsive or responsive); include_examples: true adds the code as a separate array
list_components	All 6 components with metadata
get_component({ name })	One component: HTML pattern, slots, VML/responsive flags

Components live in a separate dimension — use list_components / get_component, not get_playbook_rules.

What's in the playbook

Surface	Count	Covers
structure (rules)	5	Doctype, head, body container, header, body, footer
compatibility (rules)	3	Outlook MSO, RTL languages, responsive
production (rules)	4	Gmail 102KB clip, dark mode, preheader, bulletproof buttons
ai-generation (rules)	7	Absolute rules, asset policy, content fidelity, image placeholders, link tokens, output format, handoff checklist
Components	6	Buttons, spacing, images, inline icons, background images, text

The ai-generation category is the one to fetch first for image-to-email tasks. It encodes rules that override training-data instincts — use {{cta_url}} not https://example.com, reproduce only what's in the source, use placehold.co PNG blocks for every image you weren't given a real URL for, return HTML only.

What it doesn't do

• Doesn't send email — generate the HTML here, send it through your existing platform.
• Doesn't render previews — the Playground does (with a "From Image" tab if you have a screenshot).
• Doesn't validate existing HTML — manual pass via the Handoff Checklist.

Hosted alternative

No install? Point any JSON-RPC 2.0 client at https://docs.osamahassouna.com/api/mcp. Same tools, same content, no auth.

curl -X POST https://docs.osamahassouna.com/api/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list"}'

License

MIT © Osama Hassouna

• HTML Email Playbook
• Install + config docs
• Source (mcp/ directory)