Research a competitive landscape with cited snapshots, a comparison matrix, and so-what implications. Use when a product decision needs competitive grounding, not a market report.
Install
The skill file stays in the publisher's repository.
Paste the copied command in a terminal. It installs this SKILL.md into that agent.
npx skills add deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills --skill competitive-research-snapshot -a cursor -y
Download skills/competitive-research-snapshot/SKILL.md from the publisher, or copy the path and open the repository. PlugMCP lists the skill and does not host the file.
Where does competitive-research-snapshot live?
The publisher keeps it at https://github.com/deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills.
Which agents can use competitive-research-snapshot?
Claude, Cursor, and Codex can read a SKILL.md you add from the publisher's repository.
Research a competitive landscape with cited snapshots, a comparison matrix, and so-what implications. Use when a product decision needs competitive grounding, not a market report.
name: competitive-research-snapshot
argument-hint: "[company/product/segment, and the decision it supports]"
description: "Research a competitive landscape with cited snapshots, a comparison matrix, and so-what implications. Use when a product decision needs competitive grounding, not a market report."
intent: >-
Autonomous competitive research as a workflow: search plan, competitor selection, just-enough
research, Fact/Inference/Assumption labels, real URL citations, and next-step options — producing a
stable snapshot schema that battle cards and delta monitors consume and diff.
type: workflow
theme: market-intelligence
best_for:
"Grounding a positioning, roadmap, or deal-support decision in cited competitive evidence"
"Creating the baseline snapshot that the competitive intel watch diffs against"
"Board or exec prep that needs labeled facts instead of confident storytelling"
scenarios:
"We're rewriting our positioning next sprint — get me a cited read on our top three competitors"
"Sales keeps losing to one rival; I need evidence on where they're actually strong and weak"
estimated_time: "20-40 min per run"
Competitive Research Snapshot
Purpose
Research a company's competitive landscape using a workflow, not a one-shot answer: search plan →
competitor selection → just-enough research → fact/inference labels → real URL citations → next-step
options. The output is a decision-support snapshot, not a market report — and because its schema is
stable, downstream skills (battle cards, delta monitors) can consume it and diff it. Because it
proceeds on labeled assumptions when questions go unanswered, it can run as an agent task or on a
schedule; re-run it and diff against the prior snapshot.
Input
Works best with: the company, product, or segment to research, and the decision this research
should support (positioning, roadmap bet, deal support, board prep) — the decision determines what
"just enough" means.
Also useful: known competitors (or explicit permission to identify them), and any prior snapshot
or market-landscape-scan output in session — the skill builds on evidence already gathered rather
than re-researching it.
Input supplied inline with the invocation — text after the skill name, a pasted context dump, or an
appended ARGUMENTS: line — counts as answers already given. Use it against the question budget;
don't re-ask.
Arriving empty-handed? That works too. The skill opens with at most 3 questions (subject,
decision, competitors) and proceeds on labeled assumptions if they go unanswered.
Example invocation:Competitive research snapshot on our expense-automation product — decision: which roadmap bet wins Q1. Competitors: [Competitor A], [Competitor B]; find a third if one matters.
Key Concepts
Governing protocol: honors the autonomous-investigation
contract in full — question budget of 3, search-plan gate, Fact/Inference/Assumption labels, Just
Enough Mode, stable schema, 4-option Final Step.
Decision-support snapshot, not market report. Every section earns its place by serving the
decision named in Scope. Research value is decision support, not page count.
Snapshot as baseline. The schema is a contract with future runs: competitive-intel-watch
diffs the world against this document. Section order never changes.
Three or four competitors, not eight. Depth on the players who matter beats coverage of players
who don't. Use provided competitors; if none, identify the top 3 (4 only if clearly needed), each
with name, why relevant, source URL, and confidence.
When NOT to use: you need market sizing → tam-sam-som-calculator;
you need deep intel on one company's strategy and executives →
company-research / company-intel;
the facts are already gathered → go straight to the battle card.
Application
Credit inline context, then ask only the unanswered questions (max 3):
What company/product/segment?
What decision should this support?
Known competitors, or should I identify them?
If unanswered, proceed with labeled assumptions.
Show the 3-bullet search plan — what you'll search, source types, how facts will be separated
from inference. Continue unless revised.
Select competitors — provided ones, or top 3 identified (4 only if clearly needed). For each:
name; why relevant; source URL; confidence.
Research in Just Enough Mode with mixed sources: company sites, product/pricing pages,
customer stories, press releases, investor materials, credible news, analyst/review sites.
Emit the schema below exactly — it is a stable schema for diffing runs over time.
The "Evidence quality" row doing its job: the comparison matrix rates Comp 3's column low —
every claim traces to their own marketing. The So What section then refuses to list Comp 3 as a
primary risk: "insufficient independent evidence — Assumption to validate via customer
references." That row exists so weak columns can't masquerade as strong ones.
See examples/sample.md for a complete worked snapshot (fictional
FSM-software market) that consumes the market-landscape-scan example and becomes the baseline the
competitive-intel-watch example diffs against. examples/sample-industrial.md
shows the same schema on an industrial evidence diet — filings, registries, and honest
absence-of-evidence.
Common Pitfalls
The market-report trap. Twenty pages on industry trends nobody asked for. If a section doesn't
serve the decision in Scope, it's padding — Just Enough Mode is the contract.
Marketing-page credulity. A competitor's claimed capabilities recorded as facts. Their site is
a Fact about what they claim; whether it works is review-site territory or an Inference, labeled.
Coverage over depth. Eight competitors with two facts each. Select three that matter and go
deep — the comparison matrix should be full, not wide.
Unlabeled So What. Implications stated with borrowed confidence. The label and confidence on
each So What bullet is what makes it usable in a roadmap argument.
Regenerating instead of diffing. Re-running this skill weekly and re-reading the whole output
is theater — that's what competitive-intel-watch is for.
Adapted from market-intelligence/competitive-research-snapshot-prompt.md in the
https://github.com/deanpeters/product-manager-prompts repo.
How do I install competitive-research-snapshot?
Download skills/competitive-research-snapshot/SKILL.md from the publisher, or copy the path and open the repository. PlugMCP lists the skill and does not host the file.
Where does competitive-research-snapshot live?
The publisher keeps it at https://github.com/deanpeters/Product-Manager-Skills.
Which agents can use competitive-research-snapshot?
Claude, Cursor, and Codex can read a SKILL.md you add from the publisher's repository.