How do I install the Competitor Research skill?

Run npx skillmds@latest add zhengqiuyang/competitor-research in your terminal (requires Node.js), paste this page's agent-chat prompt into Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-connected agent, or download the SKILL.md file and copy it into your agent's skills directory.

Is Competitor Research safe to use?

This skill has not completed SkillMD's automated safety review yet. Capability flags: docs only. SkillMD never runs a skill's scripts for you; review the SKILL.md before installing.

Which AI agents work with Competitor Research?

This skill is tagged as working with Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex. SKILL.md is an open format, so most agents that read a skills directory can load it too.

Is Competitor Research free to use?

Yes. Installing skills from SkillMD is free. This skill is licensed under MIT.

Who published Competitor Research?

zhengqiuyang (@zhengqiuyang) published this skill. Their other Agent Skills are listed on their SkillMD profile.

Competitor Research by zhengqiuyang

Name: Competitor Research
Rating: 4.666666666666667 (3 reviews)
Author: zhengqiuyang

Competitor Research

Runs verdict-based competitive research for a product or project idea before building it: candidate generation, parallel research agents, a strict empty/weak/strong-incumbent verdict rubric, honest kill decisions, and wedge sharpening for survivors. Use before starting any new project, adding a major feature, or when you suspect an idea is "surely already done" — it usually is, and the research tells you where the exception hides.

zhengqiuyang Updated Sep 22, 2026

File contents

Competitor Research, With Verdicts

Most "competitive analysis" produces lists. Decisions need verdicts. This method produces one of three per candidate, forces honest kills, and sharpens only the survivors.

Process

Generate 3–6 candidates from accumulated signals — not from a blank mind: gaps you noticed while building adjacent things, "why does nobody do X" moments, incumbents' sunsetting announcements, community complaint threads. Prior signals beat fresh brainstorming.
Fan out one research agent per candidate, each instructed to:
- search aggressively with multiple query formulations (English + the market's other languages), GitHub API and npm/PyPI registry facts (stars, last-push dates, download counts) over marketing claims;
- enumerate DIRECT competitors, adjacent tools, and substitutes (vendor built-ins are the stealth killer);
- end with a verdict and a named strongest incumbent.
Apply the rubric (below). The verdict is about the SPACE, not your ego.
Kill honestly. A crowded space is a crowded space. Record the kill and the reason — it is cheap insurance against re-litigating the idea later.
Sharpen the wedge for survivors only: what exact cell of the matrix is empty? Write the one-sentence differentiation, then the honest kill criteria — which incumbent move, on what clock, erases you?

The verdict rubric

(a) Empty — nobody does this. Verify twice; empty cells are usually observation errors or demand illusions (an identical implementation sitting at 4 stars after 319 commits is a demand signal, not whitespace).
(b) Weak entries — exists, but every player has a disqualifier: dormant (6+ months), single-platform, no maintenance, wrong shape. Winnable if you can name WHY they all stalled.
(c) Strong incumbent — a well-executed tool with distribution owns it. Do not enter head-on. Only a documented, structural gap survives (e.g. "no lockfile-first flow" against a registry giant), and it carries a clock.

Disciplines that keep it honest

Facts over vibes: star counts and last-push dates from APIs; weekly downloads from registries. "Popular" is not a number.
Check the vendor's own roadmap surface: the most common killer is the platform shipping your feature natively. Ask: why hasn't the vendor done this? (Answer sometimes: their business model points elsewhere — that gap is durable.)
Freshness warning: a "underserved" conclusion older than ~2 months is suspect in fast markets. One observed case: a niche flagged empty was filled by an 11k-star incumbent's feature ship within eight weeks.
The substitute test: for each incumbent ask "what do people use when they don't use this?" — the answer is often the real competitor.
Kill-tally sanity: across 5 rounds and ~20 candidates, roughly three-quarters should die. If everything survives your research, your research is flattering you.

---name: competitor-researchdescription: Runs verdict-based competitive research for a product or project idea before building it: candidate generation, parallel research agents, a strict empty/weak/strong-incumbent verdict rubric, honest kill decisions, and wedge sharpening for survivors. Use before starting any new project, adding a major feature, or when you suspect an idea is "surely already done" — it usually is, and the research tells you where the exception hides.license: MIT---# Competitor Research, With VerdictsMost "competitive analysis" produces lists. Decisions need verdicts. Thismethod produces one of three per candidate, forces honest kills, and sharpensonly the survivors.## Process1. **Generate 3–6 candidates from accumulated signals** — not from a blank mind: gaps you noticed while building adjacent things, "why does nobody do X" moments, incumbents' sunsetting announcements, community complaint threads. Prior signals beat fresh brainstorming.2. **Fan out one research agent per candidate**, each instructed to: - search aggressively with multiple query formulations (English + the market's other languages), GitHub API and npm/PyPI registry **facts** (stars, last-push dates, download counts) over marketing claims; - enumerate DIRECT competitors, adjacent tools, and **substitutes** (vendor built-ins are the stealth killer); - end with a verdict and a named strongest incumbent.3. **Apply the rubric** (below). The verdict is about the SPACE, not your ego.4. **Kill honestly.** A crowded space is a crowded space. Record the kill and the reason — it is cheap insurance against re-litigating the idea later.5. **Sharpen the wedge for survivors only**: what exact cell of the matrix is empty? Write the one-sentence differentiation, then the honest kill criteria — which incumbent move, on what clock, erases you?## The verdict rubric- **(a) Empty** — nobody does this. Verify twice; empty cells are usually observation errors or demand illusions (an identical implementation sitting at 4 stars after 319 commits is a demand signal, not whitespace).- **(b) Weak entries** — exists, but every player has a disqualifier: dormant (6+ months), single-platform, no maintenance, wrong shape. Winnable if you can name WHY they all stalled.- **(c) Strong incumbent** — a well-executed tool with distribution owns it. Do not enter head-on. Only a documented, structural gap survives (e.g. "no lockfile-first flow" against a registry giant), and it carries a clock.## Disciplines that keep it honest- **Facts over vibes**: star counts and last-push dates from APIs; weekly downloads from registries. "Popular" is not a number.- **Check the vendor's own roadmap surface**: the most common killer is the platform shipping your feature natively. Ask: why hasn't the vendor done this? (Answer sometimes: their business model points elsewhere — that gap is durable.)- **Freshness warning**: a "underserved" conclusion older than ~2 months is suspect in fast markets. One observed case: a niche flagged empty was filled by an 11k-star incumbent's feature ship within eight weeks.- **The substitute test**: for each incumbent ask "what do people use when they don't use this?" — the answer is often the real competitor.- **Kill-tally sanity**: across 5 rounds and ~20 candidates, roughly three-quarters should die. If everything survives your research, your research is flattering you.

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