Competlab Product Watch

Product Intelligence — Snapshot

You snapshot each monitored competitor's recent product launches from public changelogs, GitHub Releases, and named-asset directories.

Adapter pattern (9 surfaces, day-1 coverage)

For each competitor, probe candidate URLs in order:

1. Structured /changelog HTML — Stripe stripe.com/changelog, Close close.com/changelog (clean ISO <time datetime=""> attributes), Mollie, Plaid
2. Developer-subdomain changelogs — developers.{domain}/changelog (HubSpot, Pipedrive). Marketing-domain returns 404 for both; adapter must probe developer subdomain first.
3. GitHub Releases API — api.github.com/repos/{org}/{repo}/releases (Cline v3.82 May 1, v3.81 Apr 24, etc.)
4. Blog-feed with category filter — Warmy.io /blog/?category=product-updates, etc.
5. Named-asset directory diff — {vendor}/claude-skills, {vendor}/mcp-marketplace, {vendor}/community-plugins (vendor-published directories listing third-party agent integrations)
6. Press / newsroom feeds — squareup.com/press, block.xyz/news
7. SPA/JS-rendered docs — Adyen release notes (browser rendering required)
8. Deprecation patterns — Braintree "SDK v3 EOL 2026-07-14" cascade
9. Sitemap-diff for feature-page additions (banked from real-world validation) — for vendors with NO structured changelog (categorical pattern for hospitality + indie-operator categories), use CompetLab's get_content_changelog to detect new /features/*, /integrations/*, /solutions/* URLs surfacing in their sitemap over time. NEW feature-page additions ARE product launches even when not announced via /changelog. This is the only product-velocity signal that works for the ~50% of vendors without a structured changelog convention.

Workflow

Step 1: Identify competitors

list_projects + list_competitors.

Step 2: For each competitor, try changelog URL patterns

for path in "${domain}/changelog" "${domain}/updates" "${domain}/release-notes" "${domain}/whats-new" "developers.${domain}/changelog" "${domain}/blog/category/product-updates"; do
  code=$(curl -sS -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" --max-time 6 -A "$UA" "https://${path}")
  [[ "$code" == "200" ]] && echo "${path} → 200"
done

For successful URLs, use mcp__competlab__fetch_url with cleanHtml:true to extract recent entries.

Step 3: Extract structured entries

For each changelog source, extract:

• Title (named feature/release if applicable, e.g., "AI Copilot 2.0")
• Date (ISO format if available)
• Description summary (1-2 sentences max per entry)
• Type (feature / fix / deprecation / API change / pricing change)

Cap at last 30-90 days per source. Limit to 10-20 entries per competitor max (don't dump full changelogs).

Step 4: For vendors with GitHub Releases as primary changelog

curl -sS "https://api.github.com/repos/{org}/{repo}/releases?per_page=10" | jq '.[] | {tag_name, name, published_at, body}'

Step 5: Detect coordinated-launch patterns

If a vendor has ≥3 same-week posts on the same topic + a product launch in the same window → classify as a single coordinated move, not 6 separate events. Example: Smartlead's April 1-8 2026 MCP-positioning push (5 same-week blog posts + 1 product post).

Step 6: Synthesize per-vendor + cross-vendor

Per vendor:

• Most recent NAMED launch + date (e.g., "vendor X — AI Copilot 2.0, April 2026")
• Recent feature drops (last 30 days, top 5)
• Release cadence proxy (e.g., "vendor Y ships 3-4 named releases/month")
• Strategic launches (any named product line vs incremental features)
• Deprecation signals (API EOL, etc. — high-value for sales-aware buyers)

Cross-vendor:

• Coverage breakdown (X of N vendors have structured changelog)
• Velocity comparison (who's shipping most named features)
• Coordinated-move patterns (single multi-dim moves)
• Strategic-launch concentration (named product lines vs incremental)

Output Structure

# Product Intelligence — [Category / Project]
> Generated [date] | Snapshot only — no velocity trend, no alerts
> Coverage: X of N vendors have structured changelog

## Summary
[Recent named launches, coverage range]

## Per-competitor
### [Competitor]
- Changelog source: [URL + format]
- Most recent NAMED launch: [name + date]
- Recent feature drops: [top 5 with dates]
- Cadence proxy: [N releases/month estimate]
- Strategic signals: [any coordinated moves]

## Cross-competitor patterns
[Velocity ranking, coordinated-launch detections, strategic-launch concentration]

Why "snapshot only" — and when to promote to dimension

This skill captures CURRENT state. For:

• Velocity trends ("X has shipped 5 named launches/month, up from 2/month last quarter")
• Diff detection ("X added Y feature on date Z, removed feature W on date V")
• Per-vendor alerting

→ Requires persistent monitoring infrastructure → promote to dimension. Decision criteria: customer demand signal post-skill-ship. If 3+ customers ask "tell me when X ships" → promote.

Decision Questions

1. "Should we surface our own product velocity publicly via /changelog page?" — if we don't have one
2. "Is competitor X's recent coordinated move worth a tactical response, or are we positioned for a different bet?"

Error Handling

• All 9 adapters return dry for a vendor (no /changelog, no GitHub Releases, no named-asset directories, no /features/* sitemap-diff, etc.): record vendor as "no public product-velocity signal." For some categories this is universal (categorical-zero — surface as category whitespace, e.g., "no vendor in this category publishes a structured changelog → first-mover positioning opportunity").
• mcp__competlab__fetch_url returns bot_protection_detected on a vendor's changelog/changelog-equivalent: record as "changelog detected at [URL], content not accessible via automation" — that IS the finding (their product-velocity is invisible to AI training crawlers + comparison engines). Don't synthesize launches from a body the scanner couldn't parse.
• Adapter returns content but no dated launches in last 90 days: record as "snapshot stale — last dated release [date]." Don't pad with undated marketing blog posts to inflate the section.

What NOT To Do

• Don't claim velocity trends from snapshot alone — say "current cadence" not "accelerating"
• Don't dump full changelogs (cap at top 5-10 per vendor)
• Don't conflate marketing blog posts with product launches — focus on named, dated feature drops