scout
MANDATORY PREPARATION
Invoke /product-thinking — it contains product principles and the Context Gathering Protocol. Follow the protocol before proceeding — if no product context exists yet, you MUST run /teach-acumen first.
Mindset: Competitors are everyone hired for the same job — not just companies with similar feature lists. A spreadsheet is a competitor. Doing nothing is a competitor. The intern who does it manually is a competitor.
Competition is about who else gets hired for the job, not who has more checkmarks on a feature matrix. Users don't compare products in a vacuum — they compare the pain of switching against the pain of staying.
Behavior
When called with a specific competitor or market area: Research and add/update that entry in the map. Ask the user what they know, what prompted the scout, and what they're worried about.
When called without argument: Review the full map for staleness and gaps. Flag competitors that haven't been updated recently. Identify missing entrants.
When called with "deep [competitor]" or for strategic decisions: Switch to deep analysis mode (see below).
Research Process (Standard Mode)
More from vgrss/acumen
features
Build and maintain a lightweight feature inventory. Use after shipping, when planning, or to understand the current product surface.
9measure
Check KPI health — what's working, what's not, where to dig deeper. Suggests /workshop for opportunities. Use for metric reviews, health checks, or when something feels off in the numbers.
9diagnose
Find current problems in the product based on data, value delivery for main personas, and current features. Suggests /workshop for ideation on solutions.
9persona
Build and maintain behavioral personas grounded in real user patterns. Use when launching, after user research, or when user understanding feels stale.
9narrate
Write product communication for a specific audience, including when stakes are high and stakeholders disagree. Use for exec summaries, eng briefs, customer announcements, or tradeoff negotiations.
9roadmap
Plan a sequence of bets, break into shippable increments, prioritize. Use when building a roadmap, sequencing work, triaging a backlog, or breaking an epic into increments.
9