/intelligence-collection-disciplines

name: intelligence-collection-disciplines
description: "Run competitive research like an intelligence agency: eight collection disciplines (OSINT to MASINT), signal-to-inference chains, and fusion. Use when one-source research isn't enough."
intent: >-
  Give product managers the intelligence community's collection playbook: eight independent disciplines,
  each with free and paid sources, signal-to-inference chains, and the PM artifact it feeds — then fuse
  them with confidence stacking so three weak signals become one strong conclusion.
type: component
theme: market-intelligence
best_for:
  - "Choosing which collection channels to run for a competitive or market question"
  - "Turning raw public signals (patents, job posts, filings, web diffs) into defensible inferences"
  - "Cross-validating a suspected competitor move across independent evidence channels"
scenarios:
  - "I think a competitor is building a platform play — how do I confirm it before their launch?"
  - "My TAM slide got shredded — where do I find data that survives scrutiny?"
estimated_time: "reference skill; a single-discipline pass takes 30-60 min"

Intelligence Collection Disciplines

Purpose

Stop doing competitive research like a term paper. The intelligence community solved this problem decades ago: they don't collect "data," they run **collection disciplines** — independent channels, each with its own sources, tradecraft, and blind spots — and then they *fuse* them. This skill gives product managers that playbook: eight disciplines, each telling you (1) what to collect, (2) where to collect it, (3) which signal → inference chains to run, and (4) which PM artifact it feeds (TAM/SAM/SOM, ICPs, personas, battle cards, roadmap bets, win/loss, positioning, pricing). One signal is an anecdote; three correlated signals from independent disciplines is intelligence.

Input

**Works best with** the six instantiation variables below — fill them once and every discipline becomes engagement-specific. Leave them blank and this stays a teaching artifact.

~~~ [TARGET] = The competitor, partner, or acquirer you're researching [MARKET] = The category and its NAICS/SIC/NACE codes (or nearest equivalent) [GEOGRAPHY] = Regions in scope, at COUNTRY level, not continent level [BUYER] = Who signs the check (drives review sites, job titles, conferences) [CAPABILITY] = The strategic move you suspect (platform play, market entry, pricing shift, compliance land-grab, etc.) [DECISION] = What this research will change (roadmap bet, positioning, pricing, market entry, deal defense, ICP refresh) ~~~

**If [DECISION] is blank, stop. Research without a decision is a hobby.**

Anything supplied with the invocation itself — text after the skill name, a pasted context dump, or an appended `ARGUMENTS:` line — counts as variables already filled. Use it; don't re-ask.

**Arriving empty-handed? That works too.** Read the disciplines as a course in tradecraft, or ask the agent to walk the instantiation block with you one variable at a time.

**Example invocation:** `Use intelligence-collection-disciplines — [TARGET]: Meridian Freight Systems, [CAPABILITY]: suspected move into warehouse robotics, [DECISION]: whether we accelerate our own integration roadmap.`

Key Concepts

The Eight Disciplines

| Discipline | Intel Community Name | Plain English | Primary PM Artifact | |---|---|---|---| | 1. OSINT | Open Source Intelligence | Press, social, periodicals, analysts | Battle cards, positioning | | 2. FININT | Financial Intelligence | Filings, earnings calls, procurement | Battle cards, SOM capture rates | | 3. GEOINT/DEMOINT | Geospatial & Demographic Intelligence | Census, labor, trade, economic statistics | TAM/SAM/SOM, ICPs, personas | | 4. TECHINT | Technical Intelligence | Patents, technographics, changelogs | Roadmap bets | | 5. HUMINT | Human Intelligence | Talent moves, employee chatter, win/loss | Roadmap bets, battle cards | | 6. SIGINT | Signals Intelligence | Web diffs, pricing changes, job posts | Battle cards, pricing strategy | | 7. MASINT | Measurement & Signature | Supply chain, ops indicators | Threat assessment | | 8. All-Source Fusion | n/a | Cross-validation and confidence stacking | Everything above |

• **Independence is the design.** The disciplines matter because they fail differently: a press

release can lie, but a customs record, a patent filing, and thirty job posts are three separate bureaucracies that would all have to be lying in the same direction.

• **Signal → inference chains** are the tradecraft: each observable signal maps to a bounded

interpretation, labeled per the `autonomous-investigation` protocol (Fact / Inference / Assumption).

• **What this is NOT:** espionage. Every source below is published, filed, posted, or publicly

observable. See Guardrails in Common Pitfalls.

Application

1. OSINT — The Journalist's Desk

*What a good beat reporter knows before the press release drops.*

| Source Type | Free | Paid | |---|---|---| | [TARGET] press & newsroom | Company newsroom pages, Google Alerts, PR Newswire feeds | Meltwater, Cision | | Industry periodicals | Trade publications, association newsletters, vertical Substacks for [MARKET] | Analyst subscriptions | | Analyst coverage | Gartner/Forrester press summaries, free webinar replays | Gartner, Forrester, IDC full reports | | Social & community | LinkedIn exec posts, Reddit, Hacker News, X | Brandwatch, Sprout listening | | Review sites | Whichever your [BUYER] reads: G2, Capterra, TrustRadius, app stores, Trustpilot | G2 Buyer Intent data | | Conference footprint | Session titles, sponsor tiers, booth size, speaker rosters at [MARKET] events | n/a | | Prediction markets | Polymarket, Kalshi, Metaculus, Manifold (crowd-priced odds on regulation, approvals, tech milestones relevant to [MARKET]) | n/a |

**Signal → inference chains:**

• [TARGET] exec suddenly posting about a n