Weekly competitor tracker

Weekly Competitor Tracker

This skill tracks weekly competitor changes by comparing your current markdown competitor notes against a saved snapshot from the previous week. It generates a structured delta-report showing what changed, what's new, and what was removed — with no APIs, no code, and no external services required.

Input:

• competitors/ folder with one .md file per competitor (e.g., competitors/acme.md)
• Optional: competitors/snapshot/ subfolder with previous-week versions of the same files

Output:

• competitor-delta-YYYY-MM-DD.md — structured delta-report saved to the competitors/ folder

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Language Detection

Detect the user's language from their message:

• If Russian (or contains Cyrillic): respond in Russian
• If English (or other Latin-script language): respond in English
• If ambiguous: respond in the language of the trigger phrase used

Important: All error messages, warnings, and instructions in subsequent steps must be output in the detected language.

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Instructions

Step 1: Validate Input

1. Check that the user has provided a path to a competitors/ folder.

   • If no folder provided:
     • EN: "No competitors folder provided. Create a competitors/ folder with one .md file per competitor and try again."
     • RU: "Папка конкурентов не предоставлена. Создайте папку competitors/ с одним файлом .md на каждого конкурента и повторите попытку."
   • If folder is empty (no .md files):
     • EN: "No competitor files found in the folder. Add at least one .md file and retry."
     • RU: "В папке не найдены файлы конкурентов. Добавьте хотя бы один файл .md и повторите попытку."

2. List all .md files in the competitors/ folder (excluding the snapshot/ subfolder).

   • These are the current-week competitor notes.
   • If only non-.md files are found:
     • EN: "Warning: only non-markdown files found. Proceed only if .md files exist."
     • RU: "Внимание: найдены только файлы не-Markdown. Продолжайте только если существуют файлы .md."

3. Check for competitors/snapshot/ subfolder.

   • If it exists: load snapshot files for comparison (Step 3).
   • If it does not exist: this is a first run — proceed to baseline mode (Step 4).

Step 2: Read Current Competitor Files

1. For each .md file in competitors/:

   • Extract the competitor name from the filename (e.g., acme.md → "Acme").
   • Read the file content.
   • Parse into sections by H2 headers (## Section Name).
   • If no H2 headers found: treat the entire file as one section called "General".
   • Extract key facts per section (bullet points, sentences with factual content).

2. Build a data structure: {competitor_name: {section_name: [fact_list]}} for all current files.

Step 3: Compare Against Snapshot (if snapshot exists)

1. For each current competitor file, look for a matching file in competitors/snapshot/.

   • Match by filename (case-insensitive).
   • If current file has no snapshot counterpart: mark as "NEW — first appearance".
   • If snapshot has a file with no current counterpart: mark as "REMOVED from tracking".

2. For each matched competitor, compare section by section:

   • Changed: content differs between current and snapshot version.
   • New: section or fact present in current but not in snapshot.
   • Removed: section or fact present in snapshot but not in current.
   • Unchanged: content identical or semantically equivalent.

3. Assign significance rating to each change based on section type:

   • High: Pricing, Product, Features, Plans, Roadmap
   • Medium: Messaging, Homepage, UX, Positioning
   • Low: News, Blog, Social, About, Team

4. Determine overall status per competitor:

   • 🔴 Significant: at least one High-significance change found
   • 🟡 Minor: only Medium or Low changes found
   • 🟢 No changes: no differences detected

Edge Cases:

• If section names differ between current and snapshot: match by similarity (e.g., "Pricing" matches "Price"); note unmatched sections as "Structure changed".
• If snapshot file is empty or unreadable: treat as missing snapshot for that competitor; note in report.
• If competitor file has no sections (plain text only): perform paragraph-level diff; add note in detected language:
  • EN: "Diff quality limited — consider adding ## section headers."
  • RU: "Качество сравнения ограничено — рассмотрите добавление заголовков ## для секций."

Step 4: Baseline Mode (no snapshot exists)

1. Generate a baseline summary (not a diff) for each competitor:

   • List all sections found.
   • Summarize key facts per section.
   • Do not attempt diff comparisons.

2. Add a prominent note at the top of the report (in detected language):

   • EN: > ⚠️ First Run — No Snapshot Found

   This is your baseline report. To enable delta tracking next week, copy all files from competitors/ to competitors/snapshot/.

   • RU: > ⚠️ Первый запуск — снимок не найден

   Это базовый отчёт. Чтобы включить отслеживание изменений на следующей неделе, скопируйте все файлы из competitors/ в competitors/snapshot/.

Step 5: Generate Delta Report

1. Create the output file: competitor-delta-YYYY-MM-DD.md (use today's date).

2. Write report header:

   • Period: last snapshot date (from snapshot file metadata or "unknown") → today's date
   • Competitors tracked: count
   • Changes detected: total count of High + Medium changes

3. For each competitor, write a section following the Output Format below.

4. Write a Summary table at the end covering all competitors.

5. Add a reminder at the bottom (in detected language):

   • EN: > Next step: Copy current files from competitors/ to competitors/snapshot/ to update your baseline for next week.
   • RU: > Следующий шаг: Скопируйте текущие файлы из competitors/ в competitors/snapshot/ для обновления вашей базовой линии на следующую неделю.

6. Save file to competitors/ folder.

Negative Cases

• No folder provided or folder empty: Stop. Return error message with instructions (see Step 1, with language-appropriate messages).
• User provides a single file path instead of a folder:
  • EN: "Expected a folder path, not a single file. Point to the competitors/ folder."
  • RU: "Ожидается путь к папке, а не к одному файлу. Укажите путь к папке competitors/."
• All competitor files are empty:
  • EN: "All competitor files appear to be empty. Add content to each file and retry."
  • RU: "Все файлы конкурентов пусты. Добавьте содержание в каждый файл и повторите попытку."

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Output Format

# Competitor Delta Report — YYYY-MM-DD

**Period:** [last snapshot date or "First run (baseline)"] → [today's date]
**Competitors tracked:** N
**Changes detected:** N (High: N, Medium: N, Low: N)

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## [Competitor Name]

**Overall:** 🔴 Significant changes / 🟡 Minor changes / 🟢 No changes

### What Changed
| Section | Change | Significance |
|---------|--------|-------------|
| Pricing | New Starter plan added at $49/mo | High |
| Messaging | Homepage headline updated | Medium |

### What's New
- [new fact not present in snapshot]

### What Was Removed
- [fact present in snapshot but gone now]

### Unchanged
- Product core features: no changes detected

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## Summary

| Competitor | Status | Key Change |
|------------|--------|------------|
| Acme | 🔴 Significant | New pricing tier |
| Rival | 🟢 No changes | — |

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> **Next step:** Copy current files from `competitors/` to `competitors/snapshot/` to update your baseline for next week.

Field rules:

• Significance: High (Pricing/Product/Features), Medium (Messaging/UX/Positioning), Low (News/Blog/Social)
• Emoji status: 🔴 = at least one High change; 🟡 = only Medium/Low changes; 🟢 = no changes
• "What Changed" table: only include actual changes, not stable items
• "Unchanged" section: brief summary only (not a full list of all stable facts)
• If first run (no snapshot): replace What Changed/New/Removed sections with "Baseline Summary" section listing current state