# Cover letter: instructions for an AI assistant Your user wants a cover letter as a PDF. Pressa fills its cover letter template with the details you collect and returns a link to the finished PDF. It needs no install, and no account or API key for up to 3 PDFs a day (those carry a small "Made with Pressa" line at the foot of each page; a free account removes it). Every design takes exactly the same details and matches a resume design of the same name: classic serif, clean modern sans-serif, a bold colour band, a colour sidebar with your contact details, and an elegant serif with your name in small capitals. Pick the one that matches your resume, type your letter once and switch freely. Preview: https://pressa.dev/template-previews/cover-letter.png ## Designs Every design takes exactly the same data, so switching is the same request with another template slug. To print in another colour, add `"color"` next to `data`; left out, the default colour is used. - `cover-letter` - Classic (use this one unless your user asks for another): A one-page cover letter that matches the classic resume, so both read as one application. Colours: navy, teal, burgundy, forest, graphite (default navy). Preview: https://pressa.dev/template-previews/cover-letter.png - `modern-cover-letter` - Modern: A clean sans-serif cover letter with a teal accent rule that matches the modern resume. Colours: teal, navy, burgundy, forest, graphite (default teal). Preview: https://pressa.dev/template-previews/modern-cover-letter.png - `banner-cover-letter` - Banner: A cover letter with your name in a bold colour band, matching the banner resume. Colours: navy, teal, burgundy, forest, graphite (default navy). Preview: https://pressa.dev/template-previews/banner-cover-letter.png - `sidebar-cover-letter` - Sidebar: A cover letter with a coloured sidebar for your contact details, matching the sidebar resume. Colours: teal, navy, burgundy, forest, graphite (default teal). Preview: https://pressa.dev/template-previews/sidebar-cover-letter.png - `elegant-cover-letter` - Elegant: A refined serif cover letter with your name in small capitals, matching the elegant resume. Colours: burgundy, navy, teal, forest, graphite (default burgundy). Preview: https://pressa.dev/template-previews/elegant-cover-letter.png ## 1. Collect the details Three or four short paragraphs: why this role, the two or three results that prove you can do it (the same facts as the resume, not new ones), and a closing line. Address a named person when the posting gives one. Never invent experience or claims about the company. Ask your user for anything missing and never invent names, addresses, numbers or amounts. Send plain text: Pressa escapes special characters itself, so do not write LaTeX. Every field below is expected: for one the user leaves out, send an empty string for text and an empty list for a list; for a number, ask (send 0 only when the user says so). Fields: - `name` (text) - `location` (text) - `email` (text) - `phone` (text) - `website` (text) - `date` (text) - `recipient_name` (text) - `recipient_title` (text) - `company` (text) - `company_address` (text) - `greeting` (text) - `paragraphs`: a list of text - `closing` (text) A complete example of the data: ```json { "name": "Alex Rivera", "location": "Chicago, IL", "email": "alex.rivera@example.com", "phone": "(312) 555-0142", "website": "alexrivera.example.com", "date": "September 25, 2026", "recipient_name": "Jordan Lee", "recipient_title": "Engineering Manager, Platform", "company": "Pinewood Payments", "company_address": "200 West Madison Street, Chicago, IL 60606", "greeting": "Dear Jordan,", "paragraphs": [ "I am applying for the Staff Platform Engineer role. For the last eight years I have built the kind of systems your posting describes: payment APIs that must never charge twice, and event pipelines that stay fast at tens of millions of messages a day.", "At Harbor Payments I built the card payment and refund APIs behind $2 billion in annual volume, and added the idempotency keys and retry-safe webhooks that ended duplicate charges during partner outages. At Lumen Logistics I replaced nightly batch jobs with a Kafka pipeline and rebuilt our tracking service in Go, cutting p95 latency from 900 ms to 180 ms.", "What draws me to Pinewood is the move to real-time settlement. It is a hard reliability problem, and it is the work I most enjoy. I would welcome the chance to talk about how I could help your platform team get there." ], "closing": "Sincerely," } ``` ## 2. Make the PDF: use the first option you can **A. You can send HTTP requests** (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, a script, n8n). Send the details as JSON under `data` (and `color` if your user picked one). Pass the body through a quoted here-document (or a file) so names like O'Brien do not break the command: ```bash curl -X POST https://api.pressa.dev/api/v1/public_templates/cover-letter/render \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d @- <<'JSON' {"color": "navy", "data": { ...same shape as the example above... }} JSON ``` The response has `pdf_url`. Give that link to your user; without an API key it works for 1 hour, so tell them to download the PDF now. **B. Pressa is connected to you as an MCP server.** Call the tool `render_public_template` with `template: "cover-letter"` and `data` shaped like the example (and `color` for another colour), then give your user the `pdf_url`. If your Pressa tools do not include `render_public_template` (`@pressa/mcp` older than 0.10.0; updating the package or restarting the app picks up the new version), use option A, or connect the hosted server from section 3. **C. You can only read web pages** (for example a chat app without a Pressa connector). You cannot make the PDF yourself through Pressa yet. Either walk your user through connecting Pressa once (section 3), then ask them to repeat the request, or send them to the form, where they can type the same details and download the PDF: https://pressa.dev/templates/cover-letter ## 3. Connecting Pressa (one time) Explain the steps for the app your user is in, in plain words: - **Claude Code:** you can run this yourself after asking your user: `claude mcp add --transport http pressa https://api.pressa.dev/mcp` - **Claude (claude.ai, the Claude app on Mac and Windows, Cowork):** give your user this link to Pressa in Claude's connector directory: . They click Connect, sign in to Pressa or create a free account (no card) on the page that opens, click Allow, and start a new chat. The connector then works on every device of that Claude account. If the directory page does not open, this link opens Claude's "Add custom connector" form with Pressa filled in: (by hand: Customize, then Connectors, "+ Add", "Add custom connector", name Pressa, URL `https://api.pressa.dev/mcp`); there they click Continue past the red note that it came from a link (normal), choose "Sign in when needed" (Claude preselects "No sign-in" as "Detected"; that one cannot sign in later) and click Add. That connector starts without an account and shows a Connect button when the free PDFs run out. - **Codex:** add a table `[mcp_servers.pressa]` with `url = "https://api.pressa.dev/mcp"` to `~/.codex/config.toml` (you can do it yourself after asking your user), then restart Codex. - **Cursor:** add the server to `~/.cursor/mcp.json` (all projects) or `.cursor/mcp.json` (this project): `{"mcpServers": {"pressa": {"url": "https://api.pressa.dev/mcp"}}}`. If you can edit files, do it yourself after asking your user. - **Grok Build:** `grok mcp add --transport http pressa https://api.pressa.dev/mcp` (you can run it yourself after asking your user). - **Grok (grok.com):** your user opens grok.com/connectors, clicks New Connector, chooses Custom and pastes `https://api.pressa.dev/mcp`. - **OpenClaw:** `openclaw mcp add pressa --url https://api.pressa.dev/mcp --transport streamable-http`, or in the Control UI: Settings, MCP, Add server, Streamable HTTP. - **ChatGPT:** custom MCP connectors need developer mode, which OpenAI offers on Business, Enterprise and Edu workspaces, and menus change between versions. If your user has it, they add an app with the URL `https://api.pressa.dev/mcp`; otherwise send them to the form: https://pressa.dev/templates/cover-letter - **Windsurf and other MCP clients:** add a remote MCP server named `pressa` with the URL `https://api.pressa.dev/mcp`. A client that only runs local servers starts it with `npx -y @pressa/mcp`. ## 4. If something goes wrong - `anonymous_quota_exhausted`: the 3 free PDFs for today are used. A free account at https://pressa.dev/users/sign_up (no card) gives 50 a month. In Claude (claude.ai, the Claude app, Cowork) your user signs in to it from the Pressa connector: Claude shows a Connect button. Elsewhere it is an API key: with HTTP requests, send it as the header `Authorization: Bearer ` (from an environment variable your user sets, never pasted into a chat); in Claude Code, your user re-adds the server in their own terminal with `--header "Authorization: Bearer $PRESSA_API_KEY"` or signs in with `/mcp` (again, never have them paste the key into the chat). Signed-in visitors can also use the form at https://pressa.dev/templates/cover-letter, which uses their account's PDFs. - `schema_validation_failed`: the response lists `missing_fields` and `type_errors`. Fix the data and send it again yourself. - `compilation_failed`: usually a character the template cannot print (it supports Latin letters with accents, not Cyrillic, Greek or Chinese). Tell your user which value to change. ## Other templates Pressa has templates for invoices, purchase orders, packing slips, delivery notes, receipts, reports, certificates, resumes and cover letters, all listed at https://pressa.dev/templates and by `GET https://api.pressa.dev/api/v1/public_templates`. Each has its own instructions at `https://pressa.dev/templates//agent.md`.