npbuilds Frontier Antenna — Product Opportunity Translator
Neocortex's frontier-scanner watches what's happening in AI. The frontier-antenna watches what it means for products. Same signal, different lens.
"Claude now has 1M context" is a frontier scan finding. "We can now build a product that holds an entire codebase in memory" is a frontier-antenna finding.
Process
Step 1 — Ingest Frontier Intelligence
Read the latest from neocortex's frontier scanning system:
data/frontier-scans.jsonlfor recent scan entries- Engage
neocortex/frontier-scannervia Agent for real-time scans if data is stale
For each development, extract:
- What changed — the raw capability shift
- Magnitude — incremental improvement or step-change?
- Timeline — available now, weeks, months?
Step 2 — Product Lens Translation
For each significant development, answer three questions:
- What does this make possible? — New product categories, new capability surfaces, new interaction paradigms that didn't exist before this development.
- What does this make obsolete? — Existing products, workarounds, or manual processes that this development makes unnecessary.
- What does this make urgent? — Windows of opportunity that will close. First-mover advantages. Capabilities that will be commoditized soon.
Step 3 — Opportunity Classification
Classify each opportunity:
| Class | Definition | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Unlock | Entirely new product category now possible | Flag for Envision — thesis-forge |
| Upgrade | Existing surface can be meaningfully improved | Flag for Evolve — amplifier |
| Commoditize | Something we do becomes table-stakes | Flag for Evolve — pruning-engine |
| Window | Temporary advantage before others catch up | Flag urgently for Seed |
Step 4 — Output
Produce a frontier opportunity brief:
=== FRONTIER ANTENNA — {date} ===
Developments scanned: {count}
Opportunities identified: {count}
--- UNLOCKS ---
{development}: {what it makes possible}
Product implication: {specific product opportunity}
Confidence: {High/Medium/Low}
Time window: {how long before this is commoditized}
--- UPGRADES ---
{development}: {what it improves}
Affected surfaces: {which existing products benefit}
--- COMMODITIZATIONS ---
{development}: {what it makes table-stakes}
Action needed: {differentiate or deprioritize}
--- WINDOWS ---
{development}: {temporary advantage}
Window estimate: {weeks/months before others catch up}
Urgency: {act now / monitor / low}
When NOT to Use
- For raw frontier scanning without product context → use neocortex/frontier-scanner directly
- For deep research on a specific technology → use spelunker
- For market/competitive analysis → use signal-reader