Procurer

procurer — Grounded Procurement Research

What this skill is

The procurer skill turns a real-world need into a grounded cost-calibration report with cited alternatives, price bands, confidence, and a recommendation. It is the agent's reflex when the user is about to decide how to spend money or effort on a problem and needs calibration before committing.

Concretely, the output of one procurer pass is:

1. A clear restatement of the need (and the underlying problem if the user named only a symptom).
2. 3–5 ranked alternatives, each placed on a provider-archetype tier (DIY-retail → mid-retail → specialty product → contractor → consultant / turnkey).
3. For each alternative: a cost band (low / typical / high) with the currency normalized to the user's locale, plus cited sources (provider URL + page title + fetched-at timestamp) and a confidence score (0–1).
4. Cross-cutting notes: tax/VAT handling, locale-specific suppliers, lead times, hidden costs, deal-breakers.
5. A recommendation — which alternative(s) to pursue, in what order, with the budget envelope.

The output is decision-shaped: the user should be able to read it and act, not need to do further synthesis.

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When to invoke (the reflex)

The procurer reflex fires on any of these signals:

| Signal | Example | |---|---| | Explicit cost question | "How much does X cost?" / "Give me a budget for Y." | | Options request | "What are my options for fixing the noise?" / "Should I get a mini-split or a window unit?" | | Hire-someone question | "Who could install this?" / "Should I get a consultant?" | | Problem with no cost asked | User describes a problem, no budget request — surface alternatives + bands anyway so they can decide. | | Multiple-vendor comparison | "Compare suppliers for varilla #4." | | Build-vs-buy / DIY-vs-pro | "Should I do this myself or hire someone?" |

Anti-trigger: if the user is researching a topic with no decision attached (e.g., "explain how acoustic windows work"), use deep-research instead. The line: is there a budget envelope at the end?

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The 5-stage procedure

Stage 1 — Decompose the need into ranked alternatives

Before any search, restate the need in plain terms and separate the symptom from the failure mode. A "noisy window" is the symptom; the failure mode is usually seal leakage (~90% of the energy on residential sliders) before it's glass mass deficiency. Cheap fixes target the dominant failure mode; expensive fixes replace the system.

Use one of the canonical decomposition patterns (see references/decomposition-patterns.md):

• Incremental → augmentation → replacement (most physical / fix-it problems).
• DIY → service → managed (when responsibility transfer is a real lever).
• Standard → custom → bespoke (when specificity drives cost).
• Single-vendor → multi-vendor → integrator (sourcing complexity).

Produce a list of 3–5 alternatives ordered by cost and disruption. State the thesis of each — what problem it actually solves, not just what it is.

Stage 2 — Map provider archetypes per alternative

For each alternative, identify which provider archetypes apply (see references/provider-taxonomy.md):

| Tier | Archetype | Examples | |---|---|---| | T1 | DIY-retail | Big-box / hardware store / marketplace / online retail. Consumables and parts the user installs. | | T2 | Mid-retail / specialty product | Specialty store with installation optional. | | T3 | Specialty product / fabricator | Manufacturer / branded supplier / custom-fab shop. | | T4 | Contractor / installer | Service that does the work end-to-end with materials it sources. | | T5 | Consultant / engineer / turnkey | Advisory or full-service end-to-end management. |

Not every alternative spans every tier. Capture which tiers are relevant per alternative.

Stage 3 — Choose the search mode

Based on the user's urgency, budget headroom, and decision stakes, choose fast / standard / deep. See references/mode-tiers.md for full contracts.

| Mode | Searches | Providers cited per alt | Latency target | When | |---|---|---|---|---| | fast | 1 per alt | 1–2 (T1 only) | 2× the median for that category, flag it in notes — don't drop it (the human decides).

1. Diversity bias. For standard and deep, prefer at least two tiers — a Tier-1 retail anchor plus a Tier-3+ specialty or contractor benchmark.
2. Locale-aware suppliers. Use locale-appropriate domains/brands. Default to user's stated region; ask if unclear.

When the agent has a WebSearch / WebFetch tool, use it. When it doesn't, mark the report as unsourced calibration — provide ranges from prior knowledge but explicitly note the absence of fresh citations and recommend the user run a sourced pass before committing.

Stage 5 — Render the report

Produce the report using references/report-template.md. The skeleton:

# 

## Problem framing

## Alternatives

### Alternative A —   (Tier T1 → T3)
**Thesis**: 
**Cost band (locale)**: low – typical – high
**Confidence**: 0.X
**Providers cited**:  — see footnotes [1] [2] [3]
**Notes**: 

### Alternative B — ...
### Alternative C — ...

## Cross-cutting notes
- Tax / VAT / IVA treatment
- Locale-specific supplier shortlist
- Common hidden costs
- Lead times

## Recommendation
**Start with**: 
**Total budget envelope**: 
**Rationale**: 
**If that doesn't work**: 

## Sources
[1]  —  — fetched 
[2] ...

Then optionally call scripts/validate_report.py to lint structural completeness (≥3 alternatives, every alternative has cost band + confidence + ≥1 citation, recommendation present, currency consistent).

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Grounding rules (binding)

These rules bind every procurer run regardless of mode:

1. No price without a citation. A number alone is not procurement research — it's a hallucination risk.
2. No alternative without a thesis. Don't list options; list options with the problem each solves.
3. No recommendation without a budget envelope. "Go with X" is incomplete; "Go with X, $A–$B inclusive of installation" is decision-shaped.
4. No locale assumption. If the user hasn't stated their region, ask before searching — supplier networks and tax handling diverge sharply.
5. Flag the dominant failure mode early. If 80% of the user's problem can be solved by a 5% intervention (Tier-1 fix), say so before they spend Tier-4 money. Honesty about what actually causes the problem is the most valuable output.

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Resources

references/

• decomposition-patterns.md — four canonical patterns for breaking a need into alternatives.
• provider-taxonomy.md — the 5-tier provider archetype model, with examples across domains.
• grounding-discipline.md — citation / confidence / locale / tax rules in full.
• mode-tiers.md — fast / standard / deep search contracts with budgets and SLA targets.
• report-template.md — the report skeleton and a fully-filled exemplar.

scripts/

• validate_report.py — structural linter for a generated procurement report. Checks alternatives count, citation completeness, confidence range, recommendation presence, currency normalization. Exit non-zero on failure.

assets/examples/

• window-noise-attenuation.md — full worked example: bedroom window noise on a Bogotá avenue, three tiers of remediation.
• construction-materials-co.md — generalized Colombian construction materials reference (CO suppliers, families, IVA handling) — lifted from the materiales-intel.v1 rules-package pattern.

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Compounding with other skills

• deep-research — when the user wants to learn about a topic before deciding, run deep-research first, then procurer for the cost layer.
• technical-research — for software/library choice with a cost dimension, do technical-research for the technical evaluation, then procurer for SaaS pricing / consultancy / implementation costs.
• bookkeeping (P8) — procurement reports that produce reusable knowledge (e.g., "the CO porcelanato market spans $35k–$120k/m²") should be filed into the entity graph via bookkeeping file.

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Closing handoff

The skill ends when the report renders. The agent's last message to the user is the report itself plus a one-line action prompt: "Want me to deep-dive any alternative, refresh citations, or proceed with a specific provider?"

Procurer never spends the money. It calibrates the spend.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: broomva
• Source: broomva/skills
• License: MIT
• Homepage: https://skills.sh/broomva/skills

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.