# Analyzing Competitors > Produces a Black Hat competitive assessment for a US Federal opportunity as a wiki of competitor entities. Use when the user needs competitive analysis, a Black Hat review or session, competitor profiling, an incumbent assessment, or to understand the competitive field for a federal bid. Creates and enriches one competitor entity page per likely bidder (modeling each competitor's probable solutio… - **Type:** Skill - **Install:** `agentstack add skill-danielkinneyspears-govcon-pursuit-brain-analyzing-competitors` - **Verified:** Yes — security-reviewed for prompt injection and unsafe behavior - **Seller:** [danielkinneyspears](https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/danielkinneyspears) - **Installs:** 0 - **Category:** [AI & ML](https://agentstack.voostack.com/c/ai-and-ml) - **Latest version:** 0.1.0 - **License:** Apache-2.0 - **Upstream author:** [danielkinneyspears](https://github.com/danielkinneyspears) - **Source:** https://github.com/danielkinneyspears/govcon-pursuit-brain/tree/main/skills/analyzing-competitors ## Install ```sh agentstack add skill-danielkinneyspears-govcon-pursuit-brain-analyzing-competitors ``` Requires the [AgentStack CLI](https://agentstack.voostack.com/docs/cli). Works with Claude Code, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible agent. ## About # Analyzing Competitors Run a Black Hat competitive assessment and record it as a living subgraph of the pursuit wiki: one entity page per competitor, each modeling how that competitor will bid. The core technique is perspective — bid the job *as each competitor would*. The wiki payoff is that the assessment does not sit in one flat document: each competitor page links to the customer hot buttons it threatens, the team's exposures it creates, and later the win themes built to counter it. ## When to use this skill Use this skill during capture, once a pursuit wiki exists (created by `qualifying-opportunities`), to assess the competitive field. It enriches any low-confidence `competitors/` stubs the bid-decision left behind, and it feeds price-to-win and win-strategy work. ## Architecture This skill is wiki-native. Read [docs/architecture.md](../../docs/architecture.md) and the [conventions](../../conventions/) first. It **reads** sources and entities, **maintains** `competitors/` and `risks/` entity pages, and **renders** the `competitive-assessment.md` view. Relevant domain-wiki pages: `[[discriminator]]`, `[[best-value-tradeoff]]`, `[[lpta]]`. ## Inputs **Required:** an existing pursuit wiki. Read `pursuit.md` (note the **posture** — it frames the whole assessment), the `customer/` entities, the `decisions/bid-decision.md` entity, and any `competitors/` stubs. **Private company context (recommended).** If `pursuit.md` carries a `company_context_path:`, read these company-context folders before intake: - `partners/`: competitors that are *also* your partners on other deals, or former partners, or candidate teammates here. The relationship history is load-bearing. - `debrief-lessons/`: what prior debriefs told you about how these competitors actually bid against you. - `customers//`: your prior interactions with this customer that reveal what the customer thinks of each competitor. See [../../docs/customize-for-your-company.md](../../docs/customize-for-your-company.md). **Before any competitor research**, read `references/competitive-intelligence-ethics.md`. Only properly sourced information may enter a competitor entity page. ## Intake Ask these as a numbered list. Skip what existing entities answer. 1. **The field.** Who are the known and suspected bidders? Is there an incumbent, and who is it? (The set-aside and vehicle in `pursuit.md` bound the field.) 2. **What is known per competitor.** For each likely bidder — size, relevant past performance, customer relationship, typical technical approach, typical price posture, recent wins and losses. What is the source of each claim? 3. **The incumbent's standing.** If the incumbent is a competitor, how is the customer relationship — strong, strained, fatigued? Known performance problems? 4. **The team's position.** Briefly, where is the team strong and weak relative to this field? (Used to assess exposure, not to set strategy.) 5. **Sources.** What public or properly obtained sources are available? Where the team does not know something, that is an intelligence gap — record it on the competitor entity with `confidence: low`; do not invent it. ## Workflow ``` Black Hat Competitive Assessment: - [ ] Step 1: Open the pursuit wiki; read company-context if configured; read CI ethics - [ ] Step 2: Complete intake; confirm the competitive field - [ ] Step 3: Create or enrich a competitor entity per bidder - [ ] Step 4: Bid the job as each competitor (the Black Hat) - [ ] Step 5: Record ghosting opportunities and the team's exposures - [ ] Step 6: Emit claims/ and source-register/ entities for the competitor reads - [ ] Step 7: Render the competitive-assessment view; validate ``` **Step 1: Open and read.** Read `pursuit.md`, the customer entities, the bid decision, the competitor stubs, and the CI ethics reference. If `pursuit.md` carries a `company_context_path`, read the relevant `partners/`, `debrief-lessons/`, and `customers/` company-context pages — they are first-rung sources for prior-relationship facts. Cite the company-context pages on the resulting competitor and source entities. **Step 2: Confirm the field.** List the credible bidders; distinguish *likely* from *possible*; treat the incumbent as its own case. **Step 3: Competitor entities.** For each bidder, create or enrich `entities/competitors/.md` per `references/black-hat-method.md` — the `## Profile` section (qualifications, past performance, relationship/incumbency, typical approach, typical price posture, capacity, recent wins/losses). Tag every claim's `source` and set the page `confidence` to the weakest claim it relies on. Mark each item known or assessed. **Step 4: Bid as them.** For each competitor entity, write the `## Assessed offer` section by switching perspective: would they bid, their likely solution, their likely win themes, their genuine strengths and vulnerabilities on *this* bid, and their likely price posture. Give each competitor their best plausible bid — no strawmen. **Step 5: Ghosting and exposures.** On each competitor page, write a `## Ghosting opportunity` section — a real, evidence-based competitor weakness, framed as a positive, proven statement of the team's strength (no competitor named in proposal text; the entity page may name them). Then create one `entities/risks/.md` page per exposure the team carries that a competitor will exploit, linked from the competitor entity — these feed `developing-win-strategy`. **Step 6: Claims and source-register.** Emit the evidence graph: - `entities/claims/`: write one claim entity per **assertable** competitor fact ("Acme Corp is the incumbent on the predecessor contract," "Acme's typical labor mix runs 30% senior / 70% mid-level," "Acme has current TS/SCI bench across the region"). Each claim has the claim text, the owner who can defend it, the assertion type (`known fact` / `assessed` / `hypothesis`), and a status. - `entities/source-register/`: write one source entity per external source the claims rest on: SAM.gov / USAspending records, Acme's public website and press releases, current public job postings, prior public awards, and any cited company-context page. Tag the source's rung on the [_source-policy.md](../../knowledge/_source-policy.md) authority ladder. For competitor-proprietary or source-selection-sensitive material that the team must not use, **do not create a claim or source entity**. Quarantine it per [competitive-intelligence-ethics.md](references/competitive-intelligence-ethics.md). **Step 7: Render and validate.** Render `views/competitive-assessment.md` from the competitor, risk, claims, and source-register entities, including the comparison matrix and an honest most-probable-winner read. Run the validation checklist in `black-hat-method.md`. Update `pursuit.md`. ## Output A `competitors/` subgraph (one entity per bidder), `risks/` entities for the team's exposures, supporting `claims/` and `source-register/` entities, and the `competitive-assessment.md` view. Tell the user: the likely field, the most-probable winner and why, the strongest ghosting opportunities, the team's most dangerous exposures, and the biggest intelligence gaps. ## References - `references/black-hat-method.md`: competitor entity sections, the "bid as them" technique, the comparison matrix, ghosting, exposures, and the validation checklist. - `references/competitive-intelligence-ethics.md`: which competitor information may be used, and how the `sensitivity` tag quarantines what may not. ## Guardrails - **Properly sourced information only.** Never use, seek, or speculate from a competitor's proprietary information or any source-selection-sensitive material. Quarantine such material with the `sensitivity` tag; do not fold it into an entity. See the ethics reference. - **No strawmen.** Give each competitor their strongest plausible bid. - **Mark assessed vs. known.** A predicted competitor offer is an assessment — set `confidence` honestly; never state a prediction as fact. - **Be as honest about us as about them.** The team's exposures get the same candor as competitors' weaknesses, recorded as real `risks/` entities. - **Maintain the graph, render the view.** The competitor, risk, claim, and source-register entities are the source of truth; the assessment view is a rendered read-out. - **Company-context stays private.** When the skill draws on a configured `company_context_path`, it **references** the company-context pages by path; it does **not copy** their content into the pursuit wiki. Resulting pursuit entities carry `sensitivity: company-proprietary` where the underlying fact came from company-context. See [../../docs/customize-for-your-company.md](../../docs/customize-for-your-company.md). ## Source & license This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code. - **Author:** [danielkinneyspears](https://github.com/danielkinneyspears) - **Source:** [danielkinneyspears/govcon-pursuit-brain](https://github.com/danielkinneyspears/govcon-pursuit-brain) - **License:** Apache-2.0 Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above. ## Pricing - **Free** — Free ## Security capabilities Automated source analysis of v0.1.0 — what this tool can access: - **Network access:** no - **Filesystem access:** no - **Shell / process execution:** no - **Environment & secrets:** no - **Dynamic code execution:** no *"Yes" means the capability is present in the source — more access means more to trust, not that it is unsafe.* ## Versions - **0.1.0** — security scan: passed — Imported from the upstream source. ## Links - Listing page: https://agentstack.voostack.com/l/skill-danielkinneyspears-govcon-pursuit-brain-analyzing-competitors - Seller: https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/danielkinneyspears - Browse the marketplace: https://agentstack.voostack.com/browse --- Listed on AgentStack — the marketplace for AI agent skills and MCP servers. 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