| name | competitive-intelligence |
| description | Gather, monitor, and synthesize competitive signals into ongoing intelligence that helps teams anticipate market moves, detect threats early, and support strategic, sales, product, and executive decisions. Use when the task requires structured monitoring, source tracking, signal triage, alerting, or intelligence operations across competitors and adjacent alternatives. Do not use for one-off competitor comparison when no ongoing intelligence system is needed. |
Competitive Intelligence
Build an early-warning system for competitive reality.
This skill is for ongoing collection, monitoring, verification, synthesis, and dissemination of competitor signals. It should help teams see what matters early, distinguish durable signals from noise, and turn scattered external and internal evidence into repeated strategic advantage.
Scope
Use this skill for:
- competitive monitoring programs
- source mapping and watchlist design
- intelligence briefs and alerting systems
- synthesis of launches, pricing, messaging, hiring, partnerships, and GTM shifts
- battlecard and win-loss input pipelines
- strategic early-warning frameworks
- competitor signal triage and escalation
- intelligence operating cadence for product, sales, marketing, and leadership
Use this skill when
Use this skill when the task needs:
- ongoing competitor monitoring, not just a one-off comparison
- a repeatable intelligence workflow or playbook
- structured source collection and update cadence
- prioritization of which competitor moves matter
- alerts or summaries that help teams respond faster
- a clear intelligence operation across public and internal signals
Do not use this skill when
Do not use this skill for:
- one-time competitor comparison with no ongoing monitoring need
- generic market research with no rival or substitute lens
- unethical or inappropriate information gathering
- internal decision-making with no external intelligence requirement
Inputs to gather
Before recommending an intelligence setup, identify:
- focal company/product and the decisions intelligence must support
- direct competitors, adjacent alternatives, and high-risk substitutes
- key watch dimensions: product, pricing, messaging, partnerships, hiring, distribution, trust, funding, regulation
- available internal signals: sales feedback, win-loss, churn reasons, support requests
- sources available: websites, docs, changelogs, review sites, partner pages, jobs, press, analyst notes, community channels
- audience for the intelligence: executives, product, sales, marketing, strategy
- required cadence: daily alerts, weekly roundup, monthly review, launch-triggered brief, etc.
If the purpose of the intelligence program is vague, define it first.
Output expectations
Return outputs such as:
- intelligence operating plan
- monitored-source map
- signal triage framework
- watchlist and alerting design
- periodic intelligence brief
- strategic warning memo
- battlecard input summary
- intelligence dashboard or reporting outline
The goal is repeated decision value, not information hoarding.
Working method
1. Start from decisions, not data abundance
Competitive intelligence should support decisions such as:
- what to prioritize or deprioritize
- what sales needs to counter in active deals
- what positioning is weakening or strengthening
- where pricing pressure is emerging
- which market narratives are changing
If the intelligence cannot change a decision, it is probably noise.
2. Build a source map by signal quality
Use a mix of sources, weighted by reliability and relevance:
- official product/pricing docs
- launch posts and changelogs
- customer reviews and comparison sites
- case studies and partner announcements
- job postings that reveal strategy or architecture direction
- analyst or industry coverage
- internal win-loss and objection data
- community chatter only when triangulated carefully
Treat rumor-heavy sources cautiously.
3. Distinguish monitoring from analysis
A good intelligence operation has two layers:
- collection/monitoring: capture changes consistently
- analysis/synthesis: explain why they matter
Do not confuse a watchlist with intelligence.
4. Triaging matters more than volume
For each detected move, classify:
- significance: low / medium / high
- likely impact area: product, pricing, messaging, sales, partnerships, trust
- confidence: observed fact vs informed inference
- urgency: monitor / discuss / respond now
Most competitor changes should be monitored, not escalated.
5. Use ethical and defensible collection methods
Strong CI should rely on:
- public sources
- legitimate internal observations
- transparent synthesis of available evidence
Do not normalize deceptive or inappropriate collection behavior.
6. Package intelligence for the audience
Different teams need different outputs:
- executives need significance and strategic implications
- product needs pattern recognition and likely roadmap pressure
- sales needs battle-ready summaries and objection context
- marketing needs narrative and positioning movement
Make the intelligence format match the user.
7. Keep the system alive
A good intelligence program defines:
- owner
- update cadence
- source refresh rules
- alert thresholds
- storage/knowledge location
- how findings become action or watch items
Without operating rhythm, CI decays into stale slides.
Adjacent skill boundaries
- competitive-analyst: handles one-off comparative analysis for a decision; this skill builds the ongoing intelligence system and signal flow
- market-analyst: broader market dynamics; this skill is rival/substitute and change-monitoring centric
- battlecard analyst / sales enablement: may consume this output; this skill supplies the intelligence substrate
- product-manager: decides responses; this skill provides the external warning and evidence stream
Quality bar
A strong result should:
- track the right competitors and substitutes
- separate observed changes from interpretation
- filter noise aggressively
- create a repeatable operating cadence
- connect intelligence to concrete audiences and decisions
- stay ethical and evidence-based
References to use
Use prompt.md for intelligence posture and synthesis style.
Use guides/qa-checklist.md before finalizing.
Use examples/README.md for output patterns.
Use meta/skill.json for boundaries and metadata.
