Competitive positioning

competitive-positioning

When to use

• A peer / reference / competitor repository was named and the team needs a structured comparison, not a vibes summary.
• A pattern from another package is being considered for adoption and the trade-off needs to land in writing.
• Positioning prose for a README / launch / pricing page needs an ours-vs-theirs decisions table to anchor on.

Do NOT use for general repo audits (route to analyze-reference-repo), upstream-contribution decisions (route to upstream-contribute), or DCF-style valuation work (route to dcf-modeling).

Cognition cluster

• Mental model 1 — First principles. Strip the comparison to the outcome each package promises its user, not the feature lists. Two packages with overlapping features can promise different outcomes and therefore are not direct competitors. See docs/contracts/mental-models.md § 1.
• Mental model 24 — Optionality. A pattern that costs little to adopt and preserves exit value beats a "better" pattern that locks the package in. Score adoption cost AND exit cost on every row. See mental-models.md § 24.
• Mental model 12 — Inversion. For each axis, ask "what would we do if we wanted to lose on this axis?" The answer surfaces the invariants the comparison must preserve. See mental-models.md § 12.
• Product context-spine slot. Read the product slot for segment / focal job / non-goals before picking axes; the comparison is only legitimate inside our own scope. See context-spine.

Procedure

1. Frame the comparison

Name the peer in one sentence: "Package P promises outcome O for segment S." If you cannot, the peer is not a peer; abort.

2. Pick the axes

3–7 axes, derived from the product spine slot, never from the peer's marketing site. Each axis must:

• Be observable from the artefacts (repo, docs, package output).
• Map to a real user outcome, not a feature checklist.
• Be able to separate the two packages on at least the threshold of "matters to a switch decision".

3. Inspect both packages on each axis

For every axis × package cell, capture:

• Evidence — file path, doc URL, behaviour quote.
• Verdict — clearly stronger / clearly weaker / parity / not applicable.
• Cost-to-close — if weaker, what would adopting their approach cost in our scope? Mental-model-24 optionality: include exit cost.

Cells without evidence are not parity; they are unknown. Surface them; do not silently call them ties.

4. Run the inversion check and validate evidence

For each axis where we win, ask: "what change would make us lose this axis?" If the answer is "none, ever", the axis is invariant — flag it as a strategic moat, not a feature.

Validate every cell against the evidence rule before continuing: verify each clearly stronger / clearly weaker row cites a file path, doc URL, or behaviour quote; check that no cell sits at parity without evidence; confirm at least one row separates the packages on a switch-decision-relevant outcome. Cells that fail this validation become unknowns, not parity.

5. Produce the verdict table

One row per axis. Columns: axis · ours · theirs · verdict · adopt? · rationale. The adopt? column is the only opinion in the table.

6. Hand back

Hand the table to the requester; route adoption decisions to decision-record, upstream proposals to upstream-contribute.

Related Skills

WHEN to use this

• Two packages are named and a verdict table is the unit of work.
• A pattern from another package is on the table for adoption.
• Positioning copy needs an anchor table.

WHEN NOT to use this

• The peer repo needs a generic walk-through first — route to analyze-reference-repo; this skill consumes its output, never duplicates it.
• The decision is to contribute back upstream — route to upstream-contribute.
• The output is monetary value (DCF, valuation) — route to dcf-modeling.
• The trade-off is across stakeholders inside our own team — route to stakeholder-tradeoff.

When the agent should load this

• "Wie schlagen wir uns gegen X?"
• "Sollten wir das Pattern aus Y übernehmen?"
• "Bau mir die ours-vs-theirs Tabelle für die README."
• "Wo verlieren wir gegen Package P?"
• "Welche Achsen sind invariant für uns?"

Output

A single Markdown block with:

1. Frame — one-sentence promise of each package, segment named.
2. Axes — bullet list of 3–7 axes with one-sentence rationale per axis.
3. Verdict table — axis · ours · theirs · verdict · adopt? · rationale.
4. Invariants — axes flagged as strategic moats with the inversion answer.
5. Adoption queue — rows where adopt? = yes, ordered by cost-to-close.
6. Unknowns — cells that lacked evidence; explicit, not collapsed to parity.

Gotcha

• A verdict table without unknowns is suspect; nobody has symmetric evidence on a peer at first pass.
• adopt? = yes without cost-to-close + exit cost is wishful; the optionality rule is non-negotiable.
• Axes derived from the peer's site are reflective, not strategic; re-derive from our own product spine slot.

Do NOT

• Do NOT score before evidence — evidence first, verdict after.
• Do NOT treat unknowns as parity to "complete" the table.
• Do NOT lock adoption decisions in this skill — hand off to decision-record.
• Do NOT include monetary or roadmap framing — this is positioning, not planning.