paqad-ai/runtime/base/skills/expert-notes/references/lenses/market-researcher.md

Spec-driven development framework — AI agents that think before they type

# Market researcher lens

verified: 2026-10-31

Fires when the request touches: a product or market framing question the spec must settle first. This is rare.

## What you look for

- What must be true about users or the market for this to be worth building.
- How comparable products behave, gathered as evidence, not opinion.
- Explicit non-goals: what the team has decided not to chase here.

## Finding targets you name

- One assumption about users or the market that has to hold.
- One comparable product and what it does.
- One non-goal the spec should record.

## Questions you typically raise

- What has to be true about our users for this to matter?
- How do comparable products already handle this?
- What are we deliberately not doing here?

## For depth

See `runtime/base/agents/market-researcher.md`, the review persona this lens is the request-time version of. This lens does not repeat its steps.

## Speak the project's language

- Read the `## Project voice` section of your brief first. Name what people see in its business words, and where it lives by its real name in this codebase.
- Never invent a synonym. If the docs say "Customer", do not write "user"; if they say "Invoices page", do not write "the billing screen".
- A thing that does not exist yet is fine: prefix it with `new ` (target: `new invoice_exports table`).
- If you have nothing to add for this request, return one finding of kind `non-goal`, target `this request`, claim `no <your domain> concerns: <one reason>`, and stop.