Step 1 — Gather context

If the user's request already provides most of this context, skip directly to the relevant step. Lead with your best-effort answer using reasonable assumptions (stated explicitly), then ask only the most critical 1-2 clarifying questions at the end — don't gate your response behind gathering complete context.

Note: If the user needs a specialized skill, route them there with a brief explanation of why that skill is a better fit.

Step 2 — Route or answer directly

If the request maps to a specialized skill, route:

• Enrichment strategy across tools → /sales-enrich
• Building prospect lists / ICP definition → /sales-prospect-list
• Email deliverability / SPF/DKIM/DMARC → /sales-deliverability
• Buying signals and prioritization → /sales-intent
• Connecting tools via Zapier/webhooks → /sales-integration

Otherwise, answer directly from platform knowledge using the reference below.

Step 3 — Tomba platform reference

Read references/platform-guide.md for detailed module documentation, pricing, integrations, and data model.

You no longer need the platform guide details — focus on the user's specific situation.

Step 4 — Actionable guidance

Based on the user's specific question, provide:

1. Step-by-step instructions with exact UI navigation or API calls
2. Configuration recommendations with specific values (e.g., "set limit to 50 for faster pagination")
3. Common pitfalls for the specific workflow
4. Verification steps — how to confirm it's working correctly

Common workflows

Find all contacts at a target company:

1. Domain Search with the company's domain → get all known emails
2. Filter by department (sales, engineering) and seniority (director+)
3. Verify the emails you plan to contact
4. Save to a lead list → export to CRM or campaign tool

Find a specific person's email:

1. Email Finder with their name + company domain → get the email + confidence score
2. If confidence <80%, check Email Format for the domain to validate the pattern
3. Verify the email with Email Verifier before sending
4. Enrich the contact for additional context (title, social profiles)

Clean an existing list before a campaign:

1. Bulk verify all emails → separate into valid, invalid, accept_all
2. Remove invalid emails immediately
3. For accept_all: include but monitor bounce rates closely
4. Enrich missing fields (names, titles) for personalization
5. Export clean, enriched list to your campaign tool

Monitor competitor tech stack:

1. Technology endpoint → see what tools a company uses
2. Similar Domains → find competitor/adjacent companies
3. Combine with domain search to find the right contacts
4. Use for technographic-based outreach → see /sales-intent

Gotchas

Best-effort from research — review these, especially items about plan-gated features and integration gotchas that may be outdated.

• Don't skip email verification after finding. The Email Finder returns probable emails based on pattern matching — they're not guaranteed deliverable. Always run found emails through the Email Verifier before adding them to campaigns. Sending to unverified emails destroys sender reputation.

• Don't ignore the Email Format endpoint. Before searching for individual emails, check the domain's email format first (/v1/email-format). If you know the company uses [email protected] (85% match), you can validate results faster and skip low-confidence guesses.

• Don't waste credits on unfiltered domain searches. A domain search on a large company can return thousands of results. Use department, seniority, and country filters to narrow to decision-makers you'll actually contact. Each search costs credits regardless of how many results you use.

• Don't forget about webhook callbacks for bulk jobs. Bulk operations are asynchronous — the API returns immediately but processing continues in background. Use the webhook_url parameter to get notified when done instead of polling. Polling wastes API calls and may hit rate limits.

• Don't assume all plans include the same features. Webhooks require Pro plan or above. Full domain search result downloads are plan-gated. Check your plan's limits before building workflows that depend on these features.

• Self-improving: If you discover something not covered here, append it to references/learnings.md with today's date.

Step 5 — Related skills

• /sales-enrich — Enrichment strategy across tools (waterfall enrichment, CRM hygiene, credit optimization)
• /sales-prospect-list — Build targeted prospect lists with ICP definition and segmentation
• /sales-deliverability — Email deliverability setup (SPF/DKIM/DMARC, warmup, inbox placement)
• /sales-intent — Interpret buying signals and prioritize accounts (use Tomba's tech detection as a signal)
• /sales-integration — Connect Tomba to CRM and other tools via Zapier, Make, or API
• /sales-cadence — Design outbound sequences for contacts found in Tomba
• /sales-do — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skills sales-do

Examples

Example 1: Finding emails at a target company

User says: "I need to find all the sales leaders at Stripe using Tomba" Skill does:

1. Recommends Domain Search on stripe.com with department=sales and seniority=executive,senior
2. Shows how to filter results and interpret confidence scores
3. Recommends verifying emails before outreach
4. Suggests saving results to a lead list and exporting to campaign tool Result: Filtered, verified list of sales leaders at Stripe ready for outreach

Example 2: Bulk email verification before a campaign

User says: "I have a CSV of 3,000 contacts and need to verify all the emails before launching a Lemlist campaign" Skill does:

1. Walks through bulk verification setup — CSV format, upload process
2. Recommends using webhook callback for async completion notification
3. Explains how to interpret results (valid, invalid, accept_all, unknown)
4. Advises removing invalid emails and flagging accept_all for monitoring
5. Points to /sales-lemlist for importing the clean list into Lemlist Result: Verified contact list with clear action per status, ready for campaign import

Example 3: Using the Tomba API for automated enrichment

User says: "I want to auto-enrich new HubSpot contacts with Tomba data via Zapier" Skill does:

1. Outlines the Zapier workflow: HubSpot "New Contact" trigger → Tomba "Enrich" action → HubSpot "Update Contact" action
2. Explains field mapping from Tomban enrichment to HubSpot properties
3. Warns about credit consumption and recommends filtering to ICP-matching contacts only
4. Points to /sales-integration for advanced multi-tool workflows Result: Automated enrichment pipeline from HubSpot → Tomba → HubSpot with credit-conscious filtering

Troubleshooting

Low match rate on domain search

Symptom: Domain search returns very few results for a company you know has many employees Cause: Tomba's database may have limited coverage for that specific company, especially smaller or newer companies Solution: Try searching by company name instead of domain. Use the Email Finder with specific names (from LinkedIn) for targeted lookups. Consider waterfall enrichment with multiple providers — see /sales-enrich.

Email Verifier returns "unknown"

Symptom: Verification returns "unknown" status instead of valid/invalid Cause: The mail server didn't respond definitively — this happens with some corporate email servers that limit SMTP verification Solution: Don't treat "unknown" as "valid." For high-value prospects, include them but monitor bounce rates closely. For bulk campaigns, exclude unknowns to protect sender reputation.

API rate limit errors (429)

Symptom: Getting 429 Too Many Requests responses from the API Cause: Exceeding your plan's rate limit — making too many requests too quickly Solution: Implement exponential backoff (wait 1s, 2s, 4s between retries). Batch requests where possible. Use bulk endpoints instead of making individual calls in a loop. If consistently hitting limits, consider upgrading your plan.