Research phase of competitive analysis. Investigates competitors deeply for a given product area or feature. Run this first, then pass output to competitive-analysis-writeup. Use when evaluating market positioning or feature strategy.
Research competitive landscape for: $ARGUMENTS
If no input is provided, stop and ask: "What product area or feature are we analyzing? Who are the key competitors to include?"
For each competitor provided (or discovered):
Use available tools (web search, public documentation, review sites) to gather evidence. Note the source for each finding so the write-up phase can cite or verify.
Prioritize: official product pages, changelog/release notes, user reviews (G2, Capterra, App Store, Reddit), and public job postings (which signal investment direction).
Produce a raw research dump organized by competitor. Do not editorialize or synthesize — that is the write-up phase's job.
For each competitor:
## [Competitor Name]
- Feature: [what they have]
- UX: [how it works]
- Positioning: [how they describe it]
- Pricing tier: [free / paid / enterprise]
- Strengths (source): [finding]
- Weaknesses (source): [finding]
- Notable gaps: [what they lack]
End with a flat list of gaps across all competitors that no one has addressed well.
Save the raw research dump to: product-documentation/competitive-analysis/
Filename format: YYYYMMDDTHHMMSSZ-<short-description>-research.md
Example: 20260226T143000Z-export-feature-research.md
Use the current UTC timestamp and a 2–4 word kebab-case description of the feature area analyzed.
Save the raw research dump to:
product-documentation/competitive-analysis/YYYYMMDDTHHMMSSZ-<short-description>-research.md
Example: product-documentation/competitive-analysis/20260226T143000Z-export-feature-research.md
Use the current UTC timestamp, a 2–4 word kebab-case description of the product area, and the -research suffix to distinguish from the write-up.