Industry Scanner Agent Skill

Industry Scanner

Daily deep-research agent that scans the internet for everything relevant to a client's industry, then generates strategic GTM opportunities based on what it finds.

Quick Start

Run an industry scan for <client>. Use the config at clients/<client>/config/industry-scanner.json.

Or for a weekly deeper scan:

Run a weekly industry scan for <client> with --lookback 7.

Inputs

• Client name — determines which config and context files to load
• Lookback period (optional) — 1 for daily (default), 7 for weekly deep scan
• Focus area (optional) — limit scan to specific categories (e.g., "competitors only", "events only")

Step-by-Step Process

Phase 1: Load Configuration

• Read clients/<client>/config/industry-scanner.json — this contains all the keywords, sources, competitors, and URLs to scan
• Read clients/<client>/context.md — need the ICP, value props, and positioning to generate relevant strategies
• Set the lookback period: use 1 day for daily scans, 7 for weekly, or whatever the user specifies
• Note today's date for the output filename

If no client config exists, ask the user for the key inputs and offer to create one from the example at skills/industry-scanner/config/example-config.json.

Phase 2: Data Collection

Run these data sources in parallel where possible. Skip any source that isn't configured. For each source, use the existing skill's CLI or tool as documented.

IMPORTANT: Run as many of these bash commands in parallel as possible to minimize total scan time. Sources are independent of each other.

2A. Web Search (built-in WebSearch tool)

Run 5-8 web searches combining the configured web_search_queries with time-sensitive modifiers. Examples:

• "<industry keyword> news this week"
• "<competitor name> shutdown OR closing OR acquired 2026"
• "<industry> conference 2026 speaker applications"
• "<industry keyword> new regulation OR policy change"
• "<competitor name> layoffs OR pivot OR rebrand"

Also search for each competitor name directly to catch any recent news.

2B. Industry Blogs & Publications

python3 skills/blog-feed-monitor/scripts/scrape_blogs.py \
  --urls "<comma-separated blog_urls from config>" \
  --days <lookback> --output json

Read skills/blog-feed-monitor/SKILL.md for full CLI reference.

2C. Reddit

For each configured subreddit, run:

python3 skills/reddit-post-finder/scripts/search_reddit.py \
  --subreddit "<comma-separated subreddits from config>" \
  --keywords "<comma-separated reddit_keywords from config>" \
  --days <lookback> --sort hot --output json

Also run a separate search with --sort top --time week to catch high-engagement posts.

Read skills/reddit-post-finder/SKILL.md for full CLI reference.

2D. Twitter/X

For each configured Twitter query:

python3 skills/twitter-mention-tracker/scripts/search_twitter.py \
  --query "<twitter_query>" \
  --since <yesterday-YYYY-MM-DD> --until <today-YYYY-MM-DD> \
  --max-tweets 30 --output json

Read skills/twitter-mention-tracker/SKILL.md for full CLI reference.

2E. LinkedIn

Search each configured LinkedIn keyword via the linkedin-post-research skill.

Delegate to the linkedin-post-research skill (uses the apimaestro~linkedin-posts-search-scraper-no-cookies Apify actor). Search each keyword with date_posted: "past-day" (or "past-week" for weekly scans).

Read skills/linkedin-post-research/SKILL.md for the full Apify workflow.

2F. Hacker News

python3 skills/hacker-news-scraper/scripts/search_hn.py \
  --query "<hn_query>" --days <lookback> --output json

Run once per configured hn_queries entry. Read skills/hacker-news-scraper/SKILL.md for full CLI reference.

2G. RSS News Feeds

If the client has an accounting-news-monitor (or similar) configured:

python3 skills/accounting-news-monitor/scripts/monitor_news.py \
  --new-only --days <lookback> --output json

Read skills/accounting-news-monitor/SKILL.md for full CLI reference.

2H. Newsletter Inbox

If the client has newsletter monitoring configured:

python3 skills/newsletter-monitor/scripts/scan_newsletters.py \
  --days <lookback> --output json

Read skills/newsletter-monitor/SKILL.md for full CLI reference.

2I. Review Sites

For each configured review URL:

python3 skills/review-site-scraper/scripts/scrape_reviews.py \
  --platform <platform> --url "<review_url>" \
  --days <lookback> --max-reviews 20 --output json

Read skills/review-site-scraper/SKILL.md for full CLI reference.

Phase 3: Consolidate & Categorize

After all data collection completes, consolidate the results:

• Deduplicate — items appearing across multiple sources (e.g., a news story on both a blog and Reddit). Keep the richest version but note multi-source appearance (higher signal).

• Categorize each item into one of these types:

| Category | What to Look For |

|----------|-----------------|

| Competitor News | Shutdowns, launches, funding, pivots, negative reviews, leadership changes, pricing changes |

| Industry Events | Upcoming conferences, webinars, meetups, speaker slots, CFPs, award nominations |

| Market Trends | Viral discussions, hot topics, emerging themes, sentiment shifts, adoption data |

| Regulatory / Policy | New regulations, compliance changes, government actions, standards updates |

| People Moves | Key hires, departures, promotions at competitors or target companies |

| Technology | New product launches, integrations, platform changes, deprecations |

| Funding / M&A | Acquisitions, mergers, funding rounds, PE investments, IPO signals |

| Pain Points | People publicly complaining about problems the client solves |

| Content Opportunities | Trending content, viral posts, gaps in existing coverage, unanswered questions |

• Rate relevance — High / Medium / Low based on how directly it relates to the client's ICP and value props.

• Filter out noise — Drop items rated Low relevance unless they're genuinely noteworthy. The goal is signal, not volume.

Phase 4: Generate Strategic Opportunities

Review the consolidated intelligence and identify items (or clusters of related items) that present genuine GTM opportunities.

CRITICAL: Do NOT force-fit a strategy for every item. Many items are just "good to know" — that's fine, they go in the intelligence briefing. Only generate strategy ideas where there is a real, actionable opportunity that could meaningfully impact growth.

For each genuine opportunity, produce:

| Field | Description |

|-------|-------------|

| Trigger | What happened — the intelligence item(s) that sparked this idea |

| Strategy | What to do about it — specific and actionable, not vague |

| Tactics | 2-4 concrete next steps with skill references where applicable |

| Urgency | Immediate (do this today/this week), Soon (next 2 weeks), or Evergreen |

| Effort | Low (1-2 hours), Medium (half day), High (multi-day project) |

| Expected Impact | Why this could matter — who it reaches, what it could generate |

Strategy Patterns to Draw From

Use these as inspiration, not as a checklist. Match the pattern to the trigger:

Competitor in trouble (shutdown, bad reviews, layoffs, pivot):

• Publish a migration/comparison guide targeting their customers
• Find their customers via review sites, LinkedIn posts mentioning them → outreach
• Engage on social posts where people discuss the shutdown/issues
• Create "alternative to X" content for SEO capture
• Skills: web-archive-scraper (recover their customer list), review-site-scraper (find reviewers), linkedin-post-research (find posts about them), cold-email-outreach

Industry event coming up:

• Apply to speak (if speaker slots are open)
• Plan pre-event outreach to attendees (skill: luma-event-attendees or conference-speaker-scraper)
• Create event-specific content (e.g., "What We're Watching at [Event]")
• Plan on-site presence and follow-up campaign

Viral post or trending discussion:

• Engage thoughtfully on the thread (LinkedIn comment, Reddit reply, tweet)
• Create response content (blog post, LinkedIn post) with the client's expert take
• If the poster is ICP, follow up directly
• Skills: linkedin-post-research, company-contact-finder

Acquisition or merger announced:

• Reach out to the acquired company's clients (they're in transition, open to alternatives)
• Create content about what the acquisition means for the industry
• Skills: web-archive-scraper (find client lists), company-contact-finder

New regulation or policy change:

• Create educational content positioning the client as an expert
• Direct outreach to companies affected by the change
• Host a webinar or publish a guide about compliance

Pain point surfaced (Reddit complaint, negative review, LinkedIn vent):

• Engage helpfully on the post (don't pitch — add value first)
• If the poster is ICP, follow up with a direct message/email
• Create content addressing the specific pain point
• Skills: company-contact-finder

Trending topic or content gap:

• Publish thought leadership content while the topic is hot
• CEO/founder LinkedIn post with a unique take
• Podcast or webinar on the trending topic

Funding round announced at target company:

• Outreach to the company (post-raise = budget for new tools)
• Skills: company-contact-finder, cold-email-outreach

Phase 5: Generate Output

Save the report to the current working directory as industry-scan-<YYYY-MM-DD>.md (or user-specified path) using this structure:

# Industry Intelligence Briefing — <Client Name>
**Date:** <YYYY-MM-DD>
**Scan type:** Daily / Weekly
**Sources scanned:** <list of sources that returned results>

---

## Executive Summary

<2-3 sentence overview of the most important findings. What should the client pay attention to today?>

---

## Intelligence Briefing

### Competitor News
| Item | Source | Link | Relevance |
|------|--------|------|-----------|
| ... | ... | ... | High/Med |

### Industry Events
| Item | Source | Link | Date | Relevance |
|------|--------|------|------|-----------|

### Market Trends
| Item | Source | Link | Engagement | Relevance |
|------|--------|------|------------|-----------|

### Funding / M&A
| Item | Source | Link | Relevance |
|------|--------|------|-----------|

### Regulatory / Policy
| Item | Source | Link | Relevance |
|------|--------|------|-----------|

### Technology
| Item | Source | Link | Relevance |
|------|--------|------|-----------|

### People Moves
| Item | Source | Link | Relevance |
|------|--------|------|-----------|

### Pain Points & Complaints
| Item | Source | Link | Engagement | Relevance |
|------|--------|------|------------|-----------|

### Content Opportunities
| Item | Source | Link | Why | Relevance |
|------|--------|------|-----|-----------|

*(Only include sections that have items. Skip empty categories.)*

---

## Strategic Growth Opportunities

*(Only include opportunities where there's a genuine, actionable strategy with meaningful potential impact. It is completely fine to have zero opportunities on a quiet day.)*

### Opportunity 1: <Short title>

**Trigger:** <What happened>

**Strategy:** <What to do about it>

**Tactics:**
1. <Specific action> *(skill: <skill-name> if applicable)*
2. <Specific action>
3. <Specific action>

**Urgency:** Immediate / Soon / Evergreen
**Effort:** Low / Medium / High
**Expected Impact:** <Why this matters>

---

### Opportunity 2: ...

---

## Scan Statistics

- **Total items found:** X
- **By category:** Competitor News (X), Events (X), Trends (X), ...
- **Opportunities identified:** X
- **Sources that returned results:** X of Y configured

Configuration

Each client needs a config file at clients/<client>/config/industry-scanner.json. See skills/industry-scanner/config/example-config.json for the full schema.

Key fields:

• web_search_queries — broad industry search terms
• competitors — competitor names to monitor
• subreddits + reddit_keywords — Reddit monitoring config
• twitter_queries — Twitter/X search terms
• linkedin_keywords — LinkedIn post search terms
• blog_urls — industry publication URLs (for RSS scraping)
• hn_queries — Hacker News search terms
• review_urls — competitor review page URLs (G2, Capterra, Trustpilot)
• event_keywords — conference and event search terms

Tips

• Daily vs Weekly: Daily scans (--lookback 1) are fast but may miss slower-developing stories. Run a weekly deep scan (--lookback 7) every Monday for comprehensive coverage.
• Noisy sources: If a source consistently returns irrelevant results, tune the keywords in the config rather than dropping the source entirely.
• Multi-source signals: Items that appear across multiple sources (e.g., on both Reddit and Twitter) are higher-signal. Flag these in the briefing.
• Strategy quality > quantity: A day with zero strategic opportunities is better than a day with five forced ones. The intelligence briefing has standalone value even without opportunities.
• Follow up: When an opportunity references a downstream skill (e.g., company-contact-finder), the user can chain directly into that skill to take action.

Dependencies

No additional dependencies beyond what the sub-skills require:

• requests (Python) — for blog-feed-monitor, reddit-post-finder, twitter-mention-tracker, hn-scraper, review-site-scraper, news-monitor
• APIFY_API_TOKEN env var — for Reddit, Twitter, and review scraping
• agentmail + python-dotenv — for newsletter-monitor (if configured)
• APIFY_API_TOKEN — LinkedIn post search goes through the linkedin-post-research skill (Apify-based)