competitor-radar

name	competitor-radar
description	Track competitor moves across changelog, pricing, hiring, and blog. Three phases: Setup (define competitors.yml), Snapshot (fetch and diff current state), Synthesis (emit weekly change report). Uses WebFetch only, no external dependencies. Triggers on: competitor radar, track competitors, competitor changes, what changed at.
triggers	["competitor radar","track competitors","competitor changes","what changed at"]

competitor-radar

Weekly competitive intelligence skill. Batch operation: define competitors once, run a snapshot weekly, read the synthesis report. No external subscriptions or monitoring services required.

When to use this skill

• Weekly competitive intelligence sweep: run on Mondays or before the Friday weekly-review-coach session.
• Before a pricing change: verify your anchor analysis is still current.
• Before a fundraise: investors will ask "who else is doing this?"
• When a prospect mentions a competitor you haven't tracked before: add it to the config and run a fresh snapshot.

When NOT to use this skill

• Real-time monitoring: this is a batch skill. For real-time alerts, use Google Alerts or a dedicated monitoring service.
• Legal intelligence (M&A signals, patent filings): use a proper CI firm.
• Login-gated pages: WebFetch cannot authenticate. Public pages only.

Phase A — Setup

Define your competitor list in:

~/.config/walter-os/state/competitors.yml

This file is operator-private and must never be committed to any repo.

Schema:

competitors:
  - name: Competitor Name
    changelog_url: https://competitor.com/changelog
    pricing_url: https://competitor.com/pricing
    careers_url: https://competitor.com/jobs
    blog_url: https://competitor.com/blog

See references/sample-competitors.yml for a filled example with three fictional companies.

All four URL fields are optional: include only pages that exist and are publicly accessible. Omit fields where the competitor has no public page.

Phase B — Snapshot

For each URL in competitors.yml, the skill:

1. Calls WebFetch to retrieve the current page content.
2. Stores the result at:

   ~/.config/walter-os/state/competitor-snapshots/YYYY-MM-DD/<competitor-name>/<page>.txt
   

   Where <page> is one of: changelog, pricing, careers, blog.
3. Computes a line-level diff against the previous snapshot for the same URL using Python's difflib.unified_diff (no system dependencies).
4. Emits the raw diff per page — additions (+) and removals (-).

If no previous snapshot exists for a URL (first run), the skill logs "baseline captured" and skips the diff. The diff will be available on the next run.

Snapshot storage structure

~/.config/walter-os/state/
  competitor-snapshots/
    2026-05-12/
      acme-analytics/
        changelog.txt
        pricing.txt
        careers.txt
        blog.txt
    2026-05-05/
      acme-analytics/
        changelog.txt
        ...

Phase C — Synthesis

After Phase B, the skill reads all diffs and produces a structured weekly report:

~/.config/walter-os/state/competitor-snapshots/YYYY-MM-DD/report.md

Report structure:

# Competitor Intelligence Report: YYYY-MM-DD

## New Features

[Inferred from changelog diffs. One bullet per inferred feature.]
- **Competitor A**: Added [feature description] (inferred from: "+New: Export to CSV")
  Significance: medium — closes a gap with our roadmap Q3 item.

## Pricing Changes

[Inferred from pricing page diffs.]
- **Competitor B**: Removed free tier (inferred from: pricing page no longer
  mentions "free forever")
  Significance: high — opportunity to capture their churning free users.

## Hiring Signals

[New job titles appearing on careers page diffs.]
- **Competitor C**: Posted 2 new roles: "ML Engineer" and "Data Platform Lead"
  Significance: low — suggests investment in ML features, 6-12 month horizon.

## New Content

[Blog post titles that appeared since last snapshot.]
- **Competitor A**: "How We Scaled to 10,000 Customers" — likely a growth
  announcement or case study signal.
  Significance: low — monitor for customer references.

---

## Summary

[2-3 sentence overall assessment of the week's competitive movements.]

**Recommended actions:**
- [ ] Run `pricing-experiment` in response to Competitor B's free tier removal.
- [ ] Add Competitor A's new CSV export to next sprint's feature backlog discussion.

Significance ratings: high / medium / low with reasoning. These are inferences, not facts. The operator should verify significant findings before acting on them.

Outputs

Per weekly run, the skill writes:

• Snapshot files at ~/.config/walter-os/state/competitor-snapshots/YYYY-MM-DD/<competitor>/<page>.txt (one file per tracked URL, per competitor).
• Weekly report at ~/.config/walter-os/state/competitor-snapshots/YYYY-MM-DD/report.md (structured synthesis: new features, pricing changes, hiring signals, new content).

All output is operator-private and out-of-repo. Files persist until manually deleted — they form a historical record of competitor changes.

Limitations

• JavaScript-rendered pages: WebFetch retrieves raw HTML/text. Pages that load content dynamically via JavaScript may not capture all visible content. If a competitor's pricing page shows blank diffs, it is likely JS-rendered.
• Login-gated content: pricing tiers behind a login, private changelogs, and internal job boards are out of scope.
• Synthesis is inference: the skill infers meaning from text changes. A line removed from the pricing page may be a redesign, not a price drop. Verify significant findings directly on the competitor's website.
• Rate limiting: if running snapshots for many competitors on the same day, WebFetch may be throttled. Space requests if needed.

Example

Three fictional competitors configured: Acme Analytics, BetaCorp, GammaTools.

Sample diff snippet (Acme Analytics, pricing.txt):

--- 2026-05-05/acme-analytics/pricing.txt
+++ 2026-05-12/acme-analytics/pricing.txt
@@ -12,6 +12,8 @@ Pro Plan: $49/month
-  - Up to 10 repositories
+  - Up to 25 repositories
+  - DORA metrics included
   - Slack integration
   - Email support

Corresponding synthesis report entry:

Acme Analytics (pricing): Expanded Pro plan limit from 10 to 25 repositories and added DORA metrics to the Pro tier. Significance: high — if our Pro plan has a lower repo limit, prospects comparing the two will see a feature gap. Recommend checking our tier limits. Recommended action: run pricing-experiment to evaluate tier rebalancing.

How it composes with other Walter-OS skills

• Feeds into weekly-review-coach: run the radar before Friday's review session; significant findings belong in "what surprised you."
• Feeds into pricing-experiment: a significant competitor pricing change is a trigger to re-run the anchor analysis and possibly rebalance tiers.
• With content-writer: a competitor's new content announcement can be a prompt for a response blog post (counterpoint or differentiation angle).