scout — know the neighbors before building blind

/scout — find peer projects, then reconnoiter them /scout <owner/repo> [...] — reconnoiter exactly these peers /scout deep <owner/repo> — one peer, source-level (clone + file:line evidence)

Answer one question: what have the projects solving this same problem learned that we haven't — and which of those lessons deserves to exist here? Both halves matter: a scout that only returns "features to copy" is just an automated parity trap. The deliverable is judgment: adopt this, skip that, and the evidence either way.

Step 0 — Know thyself first

Recon of others starts with a fix on your own position:

• Read this repo's AGENTS.md (the map skill writes it), README, and its own issue tracker's top-reacted open requests. Distill: the project's job in one sentence, and its differentiation axis — the thing it does that peers don't, which every later verdict is judged against.
• Read out/scout/tracker.md if it exists: peers already scouted, verdicts already made. A feature SKIPped with a reason isn't re-litigated unless the evidence changed; repeat runs open with "Since last scout" — new releases, new high-reaction requests, verdicts due for revisit.
• "Similar" means same problem, not same tech stack — a peer in another language that owns your problem space teaches more than a same-framework neighbor that doesn't.

Step 1 — Find the peers (skip when the user names them)

Discover candidates keyless, then rank by signals that resist gaming:

• GitHub topics overlap (/repos/{o}/{r}/topics, then /search/repositories?q=topic:X) and README/description keyword search.
• Registry keyword co-occurrence — npm /-/v1/search?text=keywords:..., PyPI JSON — projects sharing your package keywords.
• Awesome lists and "alternatives to X" directories for the long tail.

Rank by recent push cadence, download counts (api.npmjs.org / pypistats.org), and dependents (deps.dev) — never by raw stars; star counts are purchasable and four-figure HN threads document the fake-star economy. Present the candidates with one line each on why they qualify; settle on 3–6 peers. Fewer, studied properly, beats a survey.

Step 2 — Reconnoiter each peer

One sub-agent per peer, in parallel. Budget first: keyless GitHub allows 60 core req/hr and 10 search req/min shared across all sub-agents — allocate calls per peer up front, and on a 403 mark the signal unknown rather than retrying in a loop. Each agent mines three signal layers:

1. What their users beg for — open issues sorted by 👍 reactions (/search/issues?q=repo:X+is:issue+is:open&sort=reactions-%2B1). Enhancement requests draw ~4× the reactions bugs do; this is raw market demand. A high-reaction request a peer hasn't built is as valuable as a shipped feature — it's an open lane, not a gap to close.
2. What they shipped, and when — the releases API: feature inventory from release notes, plus shipping cadence (a peer releasing weekly pressures differently than an annual one).
3. What they claim — README/docs feature inventory, marked as claims, not verified behavior.

Every finding carries a locator — issue URL with reaction count, release tag, doc anchor. AI summaries of unfamiliar repos are exactly where confident hallucination lives; a claim without a pointer is discarded, not softened. Each agent writes full findings to out/scout/.work/<peer>.md and returns a summary; synthesize from the files.

Deep mode (/scout deep <repo>, or offered when a verdict needs it): clone the peer locally and read the implementation — architecture choices, the tricky parts of a feature you're weighing. Evidence tightens to file:line. This is the expensive tier; use it on the one or two peers that earned it, never the whole field.

Step 3 — The gap, both ways

Lay the feature inventories side by side against your project's job:

• They have, we lack — the adoption candidates, each with its demand evidence attached.
• We have, they lack — the moat. Knowing what not to break or dilute is half the value of the exercise; these feed the differentiation axis, not the backlog.
• Nobody has, their users want — open lanes from layer-1 signals; often the best entries on the list.

Step 4 — Verdicts, with the parity gate

For each candidate: ADOPT / ADAPT / SKIP / WATCH. The gate:

• SKIP is the default. "A peer has it" removes a reason to say no and supplies none to say yes; parity-chasing is the documented failure mode of this whole exercise. Promotion out of SKIP needs positive evidence: demand in your tracker or stated goals, fit with your differentiation axis, and a cost that fits the value.
• ADOPT — wanted here, fits the axis: one-paragraph implementation sketch shaped to this codebase + effort estimate. ADAPT — the idea transfers, their shape doesn't; name what changes. WATCH — promising but unproven; note the revisit trigger (adoption numbers, a stable release).
• License check before any ADAPT that borrows shape: ideas are free, code is licensed — flag the peer's license (a GPL peer next to your MIT project means re-implement from the idea, never from the source).

Step 5 — Brief, memory, handoff

• Render the brief in chat per references/brief-template.md (read it when you reach this step), then save to out/scout/<slug>-<YYYY-MM-DD>.md (date via date +%F — never guessed; create the folder if needed; committing the brief is the user's call).
• Update out/scout/tracker.md: one row per peer (last release seen, last scout date) and one per verdict (feature · verdict · reason · date) — the memory that makes the next run a delta instead of a redo.
• Offer the handoff, never perform it: each ADOPT item is phrased as a ready /feature <item> or /autopilot <item> invocation, with the brief's sketch as the spec seed.

Guardrails

• "A competitor has it" is never a reason. Every ADOPT cites demand or goal-fit from this project's side. The skill exists to prevent the parity trap, not to automate it.
• Evidence is a locator. Issue URL, reaction count, release tag, file:line in deep mode. No locator, no finding.
• Stars are noise. Rank and argue from cadence, downloads, dependents, and reaction counts — the signals that resist buying.
• Respect the budget. 60 req/hr shared; allocate up front, degrade honestly ("signal unknown") instead of retry-looping.
• The moat is output too. A brief that only lists what to copy failed; what to protect and what lanes are open carry equal weight.
• Advisory, not authoritative. It recommends with evidence; the human decides what enters the backlog. Nothing is implemented, filed, or committed by this skill.