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Where Your Customer Lives Agent Skill

Given a product utility and ICP, researches the internet to find the specific channels. Where your customer actually lives, ranked by reachability with a full per-channel playbook. Returns evidence that your ICP is there, one entry tactic, one content angle, and specific anti-patterns per channel. Use when asked where my customer hangs out, what communities should I post in, where is my ICP, find channels for outreach, what forums does my ICP use, where should I spend time for distribution, or which communities are right for my product.

21k tokens
context cost
the whole folder, loaded on every use
8
files
ships runnable scripts
0
copies elsewhere
how many repositories repackaged it
569
stars on the repo
on the repository, not the skill itself

Install

one command, takes just this skill from the repository
npx skills add https://github.com/Varnan-Tech/opendirectory --skill where-your-customer-lives

The instruction itself

10 sections, as written by the author

Where Your Customer Lives

Given a product utility and ICP, trace real ICP pain posts back to their source communities. Layer in competitor discussion signals. Discover Slack/Discord/newsletter/podcast/conference channels via DuckDuckGo. Score every channel by ICP signal count, size, activity, and competitor presence. Output a ranked playbook: evidence, entry tactic, content angle, anti-patterns -- one per channel. No guessing. Signal-traced channels only.


Critical rule: Every channel name in the output must exist in either the Reddit API response or DuckDuckGo search results from this run. Every member count must come from the about.json API or a search snippet -- never estimated. Every ICP signal count must match the raw data. If a channel type returns 0 results, report 0 -- do not fabricate channels.


Common Mistakes

| The agent will want to... | Why that's wrong |

|---|---|

| Recommend generic channels ("LinkedIn", "Twitter") | Every channel must be specific with a name, member count, and URL. "LinkedIn Group: DevOps for Enterprise Teams (45K members)" -- not just "LinkedIn". |

| Use the same channels for every ICP | Signal-trace is ICP-specific. A DevOps ICP and a Finance ICP produce entirely different channel lists. Run the script fresh per ICP. |

| Invent member counts or community names | Every channel name must come from DuckDuckGo results or Reddit API. Every member count must come from the API or a search snippet. If unavailable, write "member count not found". |

| Skip the competitor layer | Where competitors are discussed = your ICP is evaluating alternatives = hottest outreach context. Always run competitor search even if the user did not ask. |

| Write entry tactics that are product pitches | "Post about your product in r/devops" is not an entry tactic. Entry tactics name the specific thread type, content format, and community norm. |

| Treat Reddit as the only channel type | The output must include at least 3 channel types. If only Reddit is found, explicitly search DuckDuckGo for Slack/Discord/newsletter/conference before stopping. |


Step 1: Setup Check

echo "GITHUB_TOKEN: ${GITHUB_TOKEN:-not set -- competitor layer runs at 60 req/hr unauthenticated}"
echo ""
echo "Data sources this run will use:"
echo "  Reddit public JSON   (no auth, signal-trace)"
echo "  Reddit about.json    (no auth, subreddit metadata)"
echo "  HN Algolia API       (no auth, signal-trace)"
echo "  DuckDuckGo HTML      (no auth, channel discovery)"
echo "  GitHub API           (${GITHUB_TOKEN:+authenticated, }optional for competitor enrichment)"

If GITHUB_TOKEN is not set: continue. All core channel discovery works without it.


Step 2: Parse ICP

Collect from the conversation:

  • product -- what the product does (one sentence)
  • icp_role -- who the ICP is (e.g. "technical co-founders", "DevOps engineers at Series A")
  • icp_pain -- their primary problem (e.g. "customer acquisition", "alert fatigue")
  • category -- market category keywords (e.g. "startup gtm sales", "devops monitoring")
  • competitors -- optional competitor names (e.g. "Clay, Apollo, HubSpot")

ICP cascade:

  • If the user's prompt contains product + icp_role + icp_pain: extract them directly and proceed.
  • If the prompt is thin (only category or only product name): check docs/icp.md for a saved ICP profile. Merge with prompt details.
  • If still insufficient (missing icp_role or icp_pain): ask these 3 questions, one at a time:
  • "What does your product do in one sentence?"
  • "Who is your ideal customer? (role, company type, team size)"
  • "What is their primary problem before they find your product?"
  • Save the final ICP to docs/icp.md so other skills can reuse it.

Save ICP file if docs/icp.md does not already contain this product:

python3 << 'PYEOF'
import json, os

icp = {
    "product": "PRODUCT_HERE",
    "icp_role": "ICP_ROLE_HERE",
    "icp_pain": "ICP_PAIN_HERE",
    "competitors": ["COMP_1", "COMP_2"],
    "category": "CATEGORY_HERE"
}

os.makedirs("docs", exist_ok=True)
with open("/tmp/wcl-input.json", "w") as f:
    json.dump(icp, f, indent=2)

# Update docs/icp.md
icp_md_path = "docs/icp.md"
new_block = f"""## {icp['product']}
- **ICP role:** {icp['icp_role']}
- **ICP pain:** {icp['icp_pain']}
- **Competitors:** {', '.join(icp['competitors']) if icp['competitors'] else 'none'}
- **Category:** {icp['category']}
"""
existing = open(icp_md_path).read() if os.path.exists(icp_md_path) else ""
if icp['product'] not in existing:
    with open(icp_md_path, "a") as f:
        f.write(new_block)
    print(f"ICP saved to {icp_md_path}")
else:
    print(f"ICP already in {icp_md_path}")

print(f"Product: {icp['product']}")
print(f"ICP role: {icp['icp_role']}")
print(f"ICP pain: {icp['icp_pain']}")
print(f"Competitors: {', '.join(icp['competitors']) if icp['competitors'] else 'none'}")
PYEOF

Step 3: Run the Standalone Data Collection Script

Check if the script exists:

ls scripts/fetch.py 2>/dev/null && echo "script available" || echo "not found"

Run channel discovery:

GITHUB_TOKEN="${GITHUB_TOKEN:-}" python3 scripts/fetch.py \
    "$(python3 -c "import json; d=json.load(open('/tmp/wcl-input.json')); print(d['category'])")" \
    --icp-role "$(python3 -c "import json; d=json.load(open('/tmp/wcl-input.json')); print(d['icp_role'])")" \
    --icp-pain "$(python3 -c "import json; d=json.load(open('/tmp/wcl-input.json')); print(d['icp_pain'])")" \
    --product "$(python3 -c "import json; d=json.load(open('/tmp/wcl-input.json')); print(d['product'])")" \
    --competitors "$(python3 -c "import json; d=json.load(open('/tmp/wcl-input.json')); print(','.join(d['competitors']))")" \
    --output /tmp/wcl-raw.json

Wait for completion (allow up to 5 minutes -- Reddit + DuckDuckGo searches take ~120 seconds total).

Verify output:

python3 -c "
import json
with open('/tmp/wcl-raw.json') as f:
    d = json.load(f)
print(f'Reddit posts found: {d[\"reddit_posts_found\"]}')
print(f'HN signals found:   {d[\"hn_signals_found\"]}')
print(f'Channels discovered: {d[\"summary\"][\"total_channels\"]}')
print(f'Top priority:        {len(d[\"summary\"][\"top_priority\"])}')
print(f'By type:             {d[\"summary\"][\"by_type\"]}')
print(f'Competitor layer ran: {d[\"summary\"][\"competitor_layer_ran\"]}')
"

If total_channels < 3: tell the user: "Fewer than 3 channels found. The ICP description may be too narrow for Reddit/DDG coverage. Try broader category keywords, or add competitor names to activate the competitor layer." Then attempt one retry with broader category keywords before stopping.


Step 4: Print Channel Summary

Load the raw data and print a ranked summary table:

python3 -c "
import json
with open('/tmp/wcl-raw.json') as f:
    d = json.load(f)
channels = d['channels_discovered']
print(f'Channels found: {len(channels)}')
print()
print(f'{'#':<4} {'Channel':<35} {'Type':<14} {'Members':<12} {'ICP signals':<13} {'Score':<8} Tier')
print('-' * 100)
for i, ch in enumerate(channels[:15], 1):
    members = ch.get('members', 0)
    m_str = f'{members//1000}K' if members >= 1000 else str(members) if members else '?'
    print(f'{i:<4} {ch[\"name\"]:<35} {ch[\"type\"]:<14} {m_str:<12} {ch.get(\"icp_signal_count\",0):<13} {ch.get(\"channel_score\",0):<8} {ch.get(\"tier\",\"\")}')
"

Print the top 3 evidence posts from the highest-scoring channel:

python3 -c "
import json
with open('/tmp/wcl-raw.json') as f:
    d = json.load(f)
channels = d['channels_discovered']
if channels:
    top = channels[0]
    print(f'Top channel: {top[\"name\"]}')
    print(f'Evidence posts:')
    for ep in top.get('evidence_posts', [])[:3]:
        print(f'  [{ep.get(\"score\",0):.0f}] {ep.get(\"title\",\"\")}')
        print(f'       {ep.get(\"url\",\"\")}')
"

Step 5: AI Channel Enrichment

You now have the raw channel data. For each channel in the top-priority and high tiers, generate a playbook entry.

Load all channels:

python3 -c "
import json
with open('/tmp/wcl-raw.json') as f:
    d = json.load(f)
top_channels = [ch for ch in d['channels_discovered'] if ch.get('tier') in ('top-priority', 'high')]
print(json.dumps(top_channels, indent=2))
"

For each channel above, generate:

who_is_here: 2 sentences describing the specific type of ICP present in this channel. Derive from the evidence posts, subreddit description, and ICP profile. Do NOT write "your target audience" -- be specific. Example: "DevOps engineers at companies of 50-500 who own the infra stack without a dedicated SRE team. They post about on-call burnout, Kubernetes sprawl, and choosing between cloud-native and self-hosted observability."

entry_tactic: One specific, actionable entry move. Name the thread type, posting format, and community norm. NOT "engage with the community." Example: "Find the weekly 'What are you working on?' thread (posted every Monday by automoderator). Reply with a 3-sentence technical challenge you solved -- what broke, what you tried, what worked. No product mention. Build karma before posting standalone content."

content_angle: The content format that gets highest engagement in this specific channel, derived from evidence post titles and scores. Example: "Technical post-mortems outperform product announcements 5:1 here. Format: 'We migrated 200K users from X to Y -- here is what broke and why.' Concrete numbers + what failed = most upvotes."

anti_patterns: 2-3 specific behaviors that get posts removed or reputation destroyed in this community. Derive from subreddit rules (if available in description) and evidence post patterns. Example: ["Posting product links in non-promotional threads -- moderators remove within hours", "Asking 'what tools do you use?' without specific context -- flagged as market research farming"]

Write the enriched playbook to /tmp/wcl-channels.json:

{
  "playbook": [
    {
      "channel": "r/devops",
      "evidence": "34 ICP signals traced here, avg pain score 180",
      "who_is_here": "...",
      "entry_tactic": "...",
      "content_angle": "...",
      "anti_patterns": ["...", "..."]
    }
  ]
}
python3 -c "
import json
with open('/tmp/wcl-channels.json') as f:
    d = json.load(f)
print(f'Playbook entries: {len(d[\"playbook\"])}')
for p in d['playbook']:
    print(f'  {p[\"channel\"]}')
"

Step 6: Generate Full Ranked Output

Write the complete ranked playbook to /tmp/wcl-output.json:

python3 << 'PYEOF'
import json
from datetime import datetime

with open('/tmp/wcl-input.json') as f:
    inp = json.load(f)
with open('/tmp/wcl-raw.json') as f:
    raw = json.load(f)
with open('/tmp/wcl-channels.json') as f:
    enriched = json.load(f)

playbook_by_channel = {p['channel']: p for p in enriched['playbook']}
channels = raw['channels_discovered']

output = {
    "date": raw['date'],
    "product": inp['product'],
    "icp_role": inp['icp_role'],
    "icp_pain": inp['icp_pain'],
    "competitors": inp.get('competitors', []),
    "total_channels": raw['summary']['total_channels'],
    "channels": []
}

for ch in channels:
    name = ch['name']
    playbook = playbook_by_channel.get(name, {})
    output['channels'].append({
        "rank": channels.index(ch) + 1,
        "name": name,
        "type": ch['type'],
        "url": ch['url'],
        "members": ch.get('members', 0),
        "active_users": ch.get('active_users', 0),
        "icp_signal_count": ch.get('icp_signal_count', 0),
        "competitor_mentions": ch.get('competitor_mentions', 0),
        "channel_score": ch.get('channel_score', 0),
        "tier": ch.get('tier', ''),
        "entry_type": ch.get('entry_type', 'open'),
        "evidence_posts": ch.get('evidence_posts', []),
        "who_is_here": playbook.get('who_is_here', ''),
        "entry_tactic": playbook.get('entry_tactic', ''),
        "content_angle": playbook.get('content_angle', ''),
        "anti_patterns": playbook.get('anti_patterns', []),
    })

with open('/tmp/wcl-output.json', 'w') as f:
    json.dump(output, f, indent=2)

print(f"Output written: /tmp/wcl-output.json")
print(f"Total channels: {len(output['channels'])}")
PYEOF

Step 7: Self-QA

python3 -c "
import json

with open('/tmp/wcl-raw.json') as f:
    raw = json.load(f)
with open('/tmp/wcl-output.json') as f:
    output = json.load(f)

full_text = json.dumps(output)
raw_channel_names = {ch['name'].lower() for ch in raw['channels_discovered']}
passes = 0
fails = 0

# Check 1: No em dashes
if chr(8212) in full_text:
    print('FAIL: em dash found in output -- replace with hyphen')
    fails += 1
else:
    print('PASS: no em dashes')
    passes += 1

# Check 2: No banned words
banned = ['powerful', 'robust', 'seamless', 'innovative', 'game-changing',
          'streamline', 'leverage', 'transform', 'revolutionize']
found = [w for w in banned if w.lower() in full_text.lower()]
if found:
    print(f'FAIL: banned words: {found}')
    fails += 1
else:
    print('PASS: no banned words')
    passes += 1

# Check 3: At least 3 channel types
types = {ch['type'] for ch in output['channels']}
if len(types) < 3:
    print(f'FAIL: only {len(types)} channel type(s) in output: {types}')
    fails += 1
else:
    print(f'PASS: {len(types)} channel types: {types}')
    passes += 1

# Check 4: All channel names exist in raw data
for ch in output['channels']:
    if ch['name'].lower() not in raw_channel_names:
        print(f'FAIL: channel not in raw data: {ch[\"name\"]}')
        fails += 1

if fails == 0:
    print('PASS: all channel names verified in raw data')
    passes += 1

# Check 5: No generic entry tactics
generic_phrases = ['engage with the community', 'post about your product', 'share your content']
for ch in output['channels']:
    tactic = ch.get('entry_tactic', '').lower()
    for phrase in generic_phrases:
        if phrase in tactic:
            print(f'FAIL: generic entry tactic in {ch[\"name\"]}: contains \"{phrase}\"')
            fails += 1

if fails == 0:
    print('PASS: entry tactics are channel-specific')

print()
print(f'Result: {passes} passed, {fails} failed')
if fails > 0:
    print('Fix failures before saving.')
else:
    print('All checks passed. Ready to save.')
"

Fix any failures before proceeding to Step 8.


Step 8: Save Output and Clean Up

python3 << 'PYEOF'
import json, os, re
from datetime import datetime

with open('/tmp/wcl-input.json') as f:
    inp = json.load(f)
with open('/tmp/wcl-raw.json') as f:
    raw = json.load(f)
with open('/tmp/wcl-output.json') as f:
    output = json.load(f)

slug = re.sub(r'[^a-z0-9]+', '-', (inp.get('icp_role') or inp['category']).lower()).strip('-')[:40]
date = datetime.now().strftime('%Y-%m-%d')
os.makedirs('docs/channel-map', exist_ok=True)

outpath_md = f"docs/channel-map/{slug}-{date}.md"
outpath_json = f"docs/channel-map/{slug}-{date}.json"

channels = output['channels']
by_type = {}
for ch in channels:
    by_type.setdefault(ch['type'], []).append(ch)

lines = [
    f"# Where Your Customer Lives: {inp['product'] or inp['category'].title()}",
    f"ICP: {inp['icp_role']} | Date: {date} | Channels found: {len(channels)}",
    "",
    "---",
    "",
    "## Channel Ranking",
    "",
]

tier_labels = {"top-priority": "TOP PRIORITY", "high": "HIGH", "medium": "MEDIUM", "low": "LOW"}

for ch in channels:
    members = ch.get('members', 0)
    m_str = f"{members//1000}K" if members >= 1000 else str(members) if members else "member count not found"
    tier_label = tier_labels.get(ch.get('tier', ''), ch.get('tier', '').upper())
    
    lines.append(f"### #{ch['rank']}: {ch['name']} [score: {ch['channel_score']}] -- {tier_label}")
    
    active = ch.get('active_users', 0)
    active_str = f" | Active: {active//1000}K/day" if active >= 1000 else f" | Active: {active}/day" if active else ""
    lines.append(f"Type: {ch['type'].title()} | Members: {m_str}{active_str} | {ch.get('entry_type', 'open').title()} to join")
    
    evidence_str = f"{ch['icp_signal_count']} ICP signals traced here" if ch['icp_signal_count'] > 0 else "Discovered via DuckDuckGo search"
    lines.append(f"Evidence: {evidence_str}")
    
    if ch.get('competitor_mentions', 0) > 0 and inp.get('competitors'):
        lines.append(f"Competitor mentions: {ch['competitor_mentions']} across {', '.join(inp['competitors'][:3])}")
    
    lines.append("")
    
    if ch.get('who_is_here'):
        lines.append(f"**Who is here:** {ch['who_is_here']}")
        lines.append("")
    
    if ch.get('entry_tactic'):
        lines.append(f"**Entry tactic:** {ch['entry_tactic']}")
        lines.append("")
    
    if ch.get('content_angle'):
        lines.append(f"**Content angle:** {ch['content_angle']}")
        lines.append("")
    
    if ch.get('anti_patterns'):
        lines.append("**Anti-patterns:**")
        for ap in ch['anti_patterns']:
            lines.append(f"- {ap}")
        lines.append("")
    
    lines.append("---")
    lines.append("")

lines += [
    "## Channel Summary by Type",
    "",
    "| Type | Count | Best channel | Score |",
    "|---|---|---|---|",
]
for ch_type, chs in sorted(by_type.items(), key=lambda x: -max(c['channel_score'] for c in x[1])):
    best = max(chs, key=lambda x: x['channel_score'])
    lines.append(f"| {ch_type.title()} | {len(chs)} | {best['name']} | {best['channel_score']} |")

lines += [
    "",
    "---",
    "",
    "## Data Quality Notes",
    f"- All channel names exist in Reddit API response or DuckDuckGo search results",
    f"- Member counts from Reddit about.json API or search snippets",
    f"- ICP signal counts match raw data ({raw['reddit_posts_found']} Reddit posts, {raw['hn_signals_found']} HN signals)",
    f"- Competitor layer ran: {raw['summary']['competitor_layer_ran']}",
    f"- Sources: Reddit signal-trace, HN signal-trace, DuckDuckGo channel discovery",
    "",
    f"Saved to: {outpath_md}",
    f"JSON snapshot: {outpath_json}",
]

with open(outpath_md, 'w') as f:
    f.write('\n'.join(lines))

# JSON snapshot
snapshot = {
    "input": inp,
    "channels": channels,
    "summary": raw['summary'],
    "date": date,
}
with open(outpath_json, 'w') as f:
    json.dump(snapshot, f, indent=2)

print(f"Report saved: {outpath_md}")
print(f"JSON snapshot: {outpath_json}")
PYEOF

Clean up temp files:

rm -f /tmp/wcl-input.json /tmp/wcl-raw.json /tmp/wcl-channels.json /tmp/wcl-output.json
echo "Done. Channel map saved to docs/channel-map/"

Present the full contents of the saved .md file to the user.

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How to use it

Copy the folder

Take varnan-tech/where-your-customer-lives from the repository into ~/.claude/skills for personal use, or into .claude/skills inside a project.

Check the name does not clash

The agent identifies a skill by the name field in its header. Two skills with the same name cannot sit side by side — one of them will be ignored.