Differentiation

Differentiation

Assess whether this candidate has a genuine, defensible advantage over competitors — grounded strictly in evidence already in the Evidence Ledger. Never invent a moat claim without a citation: per references/differentiation.md §2, the engine forcibly collapses any ungrounded moat claim to LOW_COPYCAT_RESISTANCE with moat_categories=[] regardless of what was submitted, so an ungrounded claim only wastes a turn — it never survives into the persisted result.

When to use this

Opportunity is in state VOC_ANALYSIS (after reddit-voc or automated voc-submit completed).

Steps

1. Get the prompt.

   hunt differentiation-prepare <opportunity_id>
   

   This requires VOC_ANALYSIS state and prints the system+user prompt.

2. Build the DifferentiationAssessment JSON, grounded only in real evidence_ids. Draw only on evidence already in the Evidence Ledger:

   • VOC findings (from voc-submit or voc-add) — a repeated, solvable pain point competitors haven't addressed is real differentiation evidence.
   • Competitor autopsy notes (competition-analysis output) — e.g. genuinely fragmented, low-quality competition with a specific addressable gap.
   • Browser research findings (hunt browser-evidence-add output, if collected) — e.g. a verified pattern in what competitors' own listings /pages claim vs. what they lack.
   • Every moat claim in the JSON must cite the evidence_id(s) it is actually based on.

3. Default to LOW_COPYCAT_RESISTANCE unless the evidence clearly supports more. Per references/differentiation.md §1, trivial differences — color, pack count, generic "premium" language — are never a moat by default. Only claim a stronger category when the evidence genuinely supports one of the fixed categories: CAPITAL_MOAT, COMPLIANCE_MOAT, MANUFACTURING_MOAT, SOFTWARE_ECOSYSTEM_MOAT, BRAND_MOAT, DESIGN_MOAT. Do not invent a category outside this set.

4. Submit.

   hunt differentiation-submit <opportunity_id> --file <path>
   

   Requires VOC_ANALYSIS; validates + persists; advances VOC_ANALYSIS → DIFFERENTIATION_ANALYSIS.

5. If the LLM/analysis step fails, the engine itself returns copycat_resistance="UNKNOWN" rather than crashing or guessing (references/differentiation.md §3) — if you hit this, report UNKNOWN as the result; do not retry with a fabricated assessment to force a non-UNKNOWN outcome.

Next

Proceed to the red-team skill once state is DIFFERENTIATION_ANALYSIS.

See references/differentiation.md for the full moat vocabulary, the default-LOW rule, and the evidence-downgrade mechanics in detail.