Proposal: Add cover letter generation workflow

[Jaydccq]

Code of Conduct

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Existing issues

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Problem

Title: Proposal: Add cover letter generation workflow

I'd like to propose adding cover letter generation to career-ops.

Problem

Some roles explicitly ask candidates to submit a cover letter along with their CV. In those cases, it would be useful to generate a tailored cover letter as part of the application workflow.

Goal

Add cover letter generation in a way that fits the existing architecture and avoids introducing a parallel workflow.

Proposed direction

My initial thought was to integrate this into the existing CV/PDF pipeline rather than treat it as a standalone feature.

Possible approaches:

1. Generate a cover letter from the evaluated job report plus the user's profile
2. Add it as an optional step after evaluation
3. Reuse existing templates and profile context so the output stays consistent with the rest of the system
4. Only surface cover letter generation when the role looks like a strong fit and the application flow includes a cover letter field

Architectural questions

Because this touches the PDF pipeline and evaluation flow, I'd appreciate guidance on:

• Where this feature should live in the current mode/command structure
• Whether cover letters should be generated primarily from evaluation reports, CV/profile data, or curated examples
• Whether the output should be PDF firs or support markdown.
• How much of the evaluation context should flow into the cover letter generation step

Reference implementation

I opened a PR with an early implementation here:
[link to closed PR]

Happy to revise the approach once we align on scope and architecture.

Proposed solution

I’d like this to work as an optional extension of the existing evaluation + PDF workflow.

My current implementation adds a /career-ops cover-letter mode that uses the same inputs already available in the system (JD, evaluation report, CV, profile, and user framing) to generate a tailored cover letter. Instead of building a separate rendering pipeline, it generates structured content first and then reuses the existing PDF generation flow with a dedicated template so the output matches the CV design.

In practice, I think this should stay user-driven:

• explicitly available through /career-ops cover-letter
• surfaced as a follow-up step for strong-fit roles
• only used when the application flow accepts a cover letter

The output would be a single-page PDF saved in output/, and the matching report could include both the file path and a plain-text fallback for portals that use text fields instead of uploads.

Area

PDF Generation