Market Research

Setup

1. Install this skill to Skills/market-research/
2. Sign up for free API keys (all free, no usage limits worth worrying about):

• BLS: https://data.bls.gov/registrationEngine/ -> add as BLS_API_KEY in [Settings > Advanced](/?t=settings&s=advanced)
• FRED: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/docs/api/api_key.html -> add as FRED_API_KEY
• Census: https://api.census.gov/data/key_signup.html -> add as CENSUS_API_KEY

1. Install the Python dependency: pip install httpx

CLI

python3 /home/workspace/Skills/market-research/scripts/research.py  [options]

Commands

| Command | Source | Description | |---------|--------|-------------| | industry | BLS | Employment and wage data for a NAICS industry code | | establishments | Census CBP | Establishment counts by industry and geography | | economic-census | Census | Revenue, payroll, establishments from the Economic Census | | fred-search | FRED | Find relevant FRED series by keyword | | fred-data | FRED | Get time series data for a FRED series | | sizing | All | Combined market sizing report |

Options

| Flag | Description | |------|-------------| | --state | State FIPS code filter (e.g. 04 = Arizona, 06 = California) | | --years | Number of years of data (default: 5) | | --output | Save to file |

NAICS Codes

NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) is how the US government categorizes industries. Examples:

• 423990: Other Miscellaneous Durable Goods Merchant Wholesalers
• 336214: Travel Trailer and Camper Manufacturing
• 541511: Custom Computer Programming Services
• 722511: Full-Service Restaurants
• 44-45: Retail Trade (sector level)

Find codes: https://www.census.gov/naics/

Examples

# Employment + wages for custom software development
python3 scripts/research.py industry 541511

# Establishment counts in California
python3 scripts/research.py establishments 541511 --state 06

# Search FRED for relevant series
python3 scripts/research.py fred-search "software industry output"

# Get GDP data
python3 scripts/research.py fred-data GDP --years 10

# Full market sizing report
python3 scripts/research.py sizing 541511

Data Sources

• BLS QCEW: Quarterly employment and wages, updated quarterly. Most complete employment data by NAICS.
• FRED: 800,000+ economic time series. GDP, CPI, PPI, industry output, financial data. Real-time updates.
• Census Bureau: County Business Patterns (annual establishment counts), Economic Census (every 5 years, most recent 2022).

Notes

• All government APIs are free. No usage limits worth worrying about.
• BLS data is quarterly with about a 6-month lag.
• Census CBP data is annual with about a 1-year lag.
• Economic Census data is every 5 years (2017, 2022). Latest 2022 data is available.
• The sizing command combines all three sources into a single markdown report.
• State FIPS codes: https://www.census.gov/library/reference/code-lists/ansi.html

Source & license

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

• Author: zocomputer
• Source: zocomputer/skills
• License: MIT

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