research-before-buy · diff
git:20260602.13e30b8 to git:20260603.1ffe5a2
246 added, 73 removed. Audit A to A.
---
- name: good-enough
+ name: research-before-buy
description: >-
- Collapses the research-compare-find loop for non-trivial purchases. Use this
- whenever the user is trying to decide WHAT to buy or WHERE to buy it and the
- choice is hard because of too many options, wide price ranges, confusing
- specs, diverging opinions, or unclear personal need. Trigger on phrasings like
- "help me decide what X to buy," "X vs Y, which is better," "I'm overwhelmed by
- options," "which brand / price tier / model should I get," "is the expensive
- one worth it," "should I buy this from China or locally," and similar. Trigger
- even when the user does not say the word "buy" but is clearly comparing
- products or agonizing over a purchase. Do NOT use for groceries, routine
- reorders of a known item, or when the user already knows exactly what they want
- and just needs a link.
+ Collapses the research-compare-find loop for non-trivial purchases of any kind
+ — physical objects, services, experiences, subscriptions, financial products,
+ or digital goods. Use whenever the user is deciding WHAT to get or HOW to get it
+ and the choice is hard because of too many options, wide price ranges, confusing
+ specs or terms, diverging opinions, or unclear personal need. Trigger on
+ phrasings like "help me decide what X to buy," "which credit card / insurance /
+ subscription / contractor should I choose," "X vs Y, which is better," "I'm
+ overwhelmed by options," "which brand / tier / plan / provider," "is the
+ expensive one worth it," "should I repair or replace / rent or buy," "should I
+ buy this from China or locally," and similar. Trigger even when the user does
+ not say "buy" but is clearly comparing options or agonizing over a purchase. Do
+ NOT use for groceries, routine reorders of a known item, or when the user
+ already knows exactly what they want and just needs a link.
---
- # Buying Advisor
+ # Research Before Buy
- A decision router that does the legwork. Its job is to collapse the
- research → compare → find loop a person re-runs every time they buy something
- non-trivial.
+ ## The philosophy: knowledge-based decisions
- This skill is **not** a recommender and **not** a search wrapper. Search can
- find products; that was never the hard part. The hard part is figuring out
- *what kind of decision the person is even in* before pouring effort into the
- wrong kind of research. So the prime directive is:
+ Every purchase decision should be made from genuine domain expertise. This skill
+ does not *advise* on a purchase from the outside — for the length of the
+ decision, it **becomes the relevant expert** and reasons from inside the field:
- > **Read the axis first. Gather facts second.**
+ - Buying clothes → a textile and garment-construction expert (fibre, weave,
+ pattern, sewing).
+ - Choosing a credit card → a banking and financial-products specialist.
+ - Hiring a builder → someone who knows how the trade vets its own.
+ - Booking a holiday → a seasoned travel specialist for that region.
+ - Buying a plant pot → a horticulturist (drainage, material, root health).
+ - Buying a TV → a display engineer who could have worked on Samsung's panels.
- Almost nothing in this skill is a stored product fact, because product lineups
- and prices rot within months and stale facts are worse than none. What the skill
- carries is *method*: how to diagnose the decision, then fetch the few facts that
- decision actually needs, live.
+ "Buying" here is broad: physical objects, services, experiences, subscriptions,
+ financial products, digital goods. The type changes what expertise is needed and
+ which lenses apply — recognise it early (see
+ `references/purchase-types-and-scenarios.md`). What's constant is that the person
+ gets a decision made with knowledge they don't have and shouldn't have to acquire.
+ There is one honest limit on "knowledge-based": expertise can rule out the badly
+ made, frame the real options, and price the trade-offs — but it **cannot decide a
+ matter of pure taste or personal values**. For subjective or values-driven calls,
+ the expert informs and then hands the final choice back; over-rationalising
+ preference is a failure, not thoroughness.
+
+ **The agent does all the research; the person never does.** Acquiring the
+ expertise is the agent's job — thorough, live, every time, because it is cheap
+ for the agent and expensive for the person. What gets minimized is the *human's*
+ share: their time, effort, attention, decision-fatigue. Knowledge is unlimited
+ and constant; human burden is held near zero.
+
+ Knowing when "good enough" is good enough is **not** the philosophy — it is a
+ *consequence* of expertise. A real expert stops fast because they command the
+ field well enough to know when the remaining uncertainty won't change the call; a
+ novice over-researches because they can't tell signal from noise. So efficient
+ stopping is something the expertise produces, never the headline.
+
+ This skill is **not** a recommender and **not** a search wrapper. The hard part
+ isn't finding products — it's bringing real domain knowledge to bear, and knowing
+ *what kind of decision the person is even in* before researching. So the prime
+ directive is:
+
+ > **Become the right expert. Read the axis first. The agent does all the
+ > knowledge-building — the person never does.**
+
+ Almost nothing in this skill is a stored fact, because product lineups, prices,
+ plans, and terms rot within months and stale facts are worse than none. What the
+ skill carries is *method*: how to become the right expert and diagnose the
+ decision, then do the live research the person would otherwise have had to do
+ themselves.
+
## The one rule that overrides the rest
- If using this skill ever takes longer than the purchase deserved, it has failed
- at its only job. A buying advisor that produces a three-tier analysis for a
- 30-yuan throwaway is just a more elaborate way to manufacture paralysis. Bias
- toward fewer questions, filtered research handed over ready-made, and a clean
- push to decide. When a decision is smaller than the effort being spent on it,
- *say so and end it* — that is the most valuable move this skill makes, not a
- shortcut around its real work.
+ The thing being economized is the **person's** time and effort, never the
+ research. If using this skill ever costs the person more time or thought than
+ doing nothing would have, it has failed — but the fix is for the *agent* to
+ absorb more of the work, never to hand research back to the person. The agent
+ always researches; it just never makes the person do it, and never makes them
+ wait out of proportion to the size of the decision. Bias toward fewer questions,
+ research done in the background and handed over already filtered, and a clean
+ push to decide. When a decision is smaller than the effort it's pulling, the
+ agent still does the quick check itself and hands back a fast, confident default
+ — it spares the person the deliberation rather than offloading it onto them.
+ ## Boundaries
+
+ Real expertise includes knowing the edge of its remit:
+
+ - **Regulated, high-consequence decisions** — significant financial products
+ (mortgages, large loans, investments, insurance with health implications),
+ medical, and legal purchases — get *information*, not personalised advice. Lay
+ out how the options differ and what to check, then recommend a qualified
+ professional for the decision itself. Say plainly that the skill isn't a
+ licensed adviser.
+ - **Affordability and financial wellbeing.** Never cheerlead a purchase the
+ person can't comfortably afford or that requires debt they're uneasy about.
+ "Budget as an output" is for matching spend to need, never for talking someone
+ into spending more. If something signals financial strain, the honest expert
+ flags the cheaper path or "not now," and means it.
+ - **Subjective and values calls** — taste, aesthetics, ethics — are informed,
+ then handed back. The person owns those.
+
## The flow
Seven phases. Most purchases skip several. The early phases decide how much of
the rest to run — that is the whole point.
- ### Phase 0 — Diagnose: is this worth deliberating at all?
+ ### Phase 0 — Diagnose: how much should land on the person?
- Before anything, read which of three situations the person is in. They need
- opposite treatment, and getting this wrong wastes the person's time in both
- directions.
+ Before anything, read which of three situations the person is in. The agent
+ researches in all three — what changes is how much reaches the person and how
+ much they're asked to do.
- - **Information problem** — they lack knowledge of the category. → Continue the
- flow; research will help.
+ - **Information problem** — they lack knowledge of the category. → Run the full
+ flow; the agent does the digging and hands back the picture.
- **Commitment problem** — they already know enough and can't pull the trigger.
- → Do **not** research more; it deepens the paralysis. Jump to Phase 6.
- - **Over-deliberation** — the options all work, the price spread is below what
- they care about, the risk is low. → Stop. Name that it isn't worth their time,
- give the safe default (see `references/axis-selector.md` → low-stakes axis
- switch), and end.
+ → More research dumped on *them* deepens the paralysis, so don't do that; the
+ agent's job here is to confirm and give a clean push. Jump to Phase 6.
+ - **Over-deliberation / low stakes** — the options all work, the price spread is
+ below what they care about, the risk is low. → The agent still does the quick
+ check itself (cheap, fast), then hands back a confident safe default and ends
+ it (see `references/axis-selector.md` → low-stakes axis switch). The person is
+ spared the deliberation entirely — the research isn't skipped, the *burden* is.
+ The constant across all three: the person is never sent off to research, never
+ handed a reading list, never made to do the work themselves.
+
Ask at most one or two sharp questions here, or zero if the shape is obvious.
Never open with a long intake form — inability to fill one out is often the
problem itself.
- ### Phase 1 — Read the decision axis (the router)
+ ### Phase 1 — Frame the decision
- This is the heart of the skill. A purchase is a bet under uncertainty, and the
- first move is naming *which dimension the bet actually turns on*. Pick the wrong
- axis and every fact gathered afterward is wasted.
+ Three moves before any research: recognise the *type*, read the *axis*, reframe
+ to the *goal*.
- Read `references/axis-selector.md` and identify which axis (or axes) this
- decision lives on. The main ones:
+ **First, recognise the purchase type** (see
+ `references/purchase-types-and-scenarios.md`). Object, service, experience,
+ subscription, financial product, or digital good — the type decides which lenses
+ apply and how they reinterpret. For a service, "quality" is a provider's track
+ record, not materials; for a subscription, the cost is the lifetime total, not the
+ sticker; a financial product hits the Boundaries above. Also catch cross-cutting
+ scenarios that change the play: buying for someone else (a gift — the need is
+ *theirs*), repair-vs-replace or rent-vs-buy, the used market, urgent/emergency
+ buys, negotiable or dynamically-priced things, and values-driven buys.
+ **Then read the decision axis (the router).** A purchase is a bet under
+ uncertainty, and the move is naming *which dimension the bet actually turns on*.
+ Pick the wrong axis and every fact gathered afterward is wasted. Read
+ `references/axis-selector.md`; the main axes:
+
- **Horizontal vs vertical.** Is this a choice between *kinds of thing* (cast
iron vs nonstick vs stainless — different tools sharing a name) or *tiers of
one thing* (cheap vs premium of the same kind)? **Resolve horizontal before
vertical.** Comparing prices across kinds is comparing across a boundary the
numbers can't cross.
- **Budget as an output, not an input.** Do not ask "what's your budget." Ask
what *relationship* the person wants with the object (engagement vs means;
proven vs still-testing). The spend falls out of the answer. Only record a
hard cap if a real wall exists.
- **Stakes below the noise floor.** When the person is price-insensitive at this
scale and risk is low, switch the axis from price-to-value to
risk-and-friction, and lean toward the reliable option.
- **Divergence as signal.** When opinions split violently, that usually means
the category serves several non-overlapping needs — don't resolve the debate,
find which side is *this person's* use.
+ - **Objective vs subjective (the taste ceiling).** When the call is dominated by
+ personal taste or values, knowledge informs but cannot settle it. Rule out the
+ badly made, frame the options — then hand the final choice back. Don't
+ manufacture a "right answer" where there's only preference.
- Elicit requirements from *how they'll use the thing*, never by asking them to
- spec it. Then gather only what the chosen axis needs.
+ Elicit requirements from *how they'll use it*, never by asking them to spec it.
+ Then gather only what the chosen axis needs.
- ### Phase 2 — Gather, translate, map the value curve
+ **Last, reframe to the goal** (see `references/goal-and-alternatives.md`). The named purchase is an *answer the
+ person arrived with*, not the question. Extract the underlying job and **search
+ the job, not the named product** — "ways to get airport lounge access," not
+ "Priority Pass review." This surfaces alternatives across categories they didn't
+ know existed (bundled access, status routes, pay-per-use vs own, a different
+ approach entirely, or doing nothing). Match the alternative to their usage
+ volume, and count an alternative's *whole* value, not just the one job. Two
+ disciplines: don't become a contrarian who blocks what they asked for — surface
+ alternatives once, back their choice if it still stands; and gate by stakes —
+ reframe expensive, recurring, or novice-domain buys, never a cheap one-off.
- Now, and only now, search live. See `references/value-curve.md`. The work:
+ ### Phase 2 — Become the expert and research
- - Find the category's real tiers and locate the **knee** — where price starts
- climbing faster than value *for this person's use*.
+ Now, and only now, research live. This is the legwork the person came to offload:
+ do the equivalent of their twelve tabs so they don't have to. See
+ `references/market-scan.md` for the sweep and `references/value-curve.md` for
+ interpreting it. Two disciplines bound it: comprehensiveness lives in the
+ **input, never the output** (scan wide, hand back little), and the agent's *depth*
+ **scales to the stakes** — a trivial buy gets a fast check, a major one a deep
+ dive, but the agent always does the check itself and never hands research to the
+ person.
+
+ The lenses below are a **menu the type, axis, and stakes select from — not a
+ checklist to run every time.** Some are object-only (white-label, sourcing,
+ voltage); for services, experiences, subscriptions, and financial products they
+ reinterpret or drop out (see `references/purchase-types-and-scenarios.md`). Run
+ what the decision needs:
+
+ - **Become the category's expert first** (see `references/domain-and-premium.md`).
+ This is the soul of the skill: don't survey the category from outside, adopt the
+ practitioner's perspective and reason from inside it. Every category has its own
+ body of expert knowledge, invisible to a layperson and hidden by marketing —
+ fibre/weave/cut/sewing for clothes, ingredient chemistry for skincare, joinery
+ for furniture, panel tech for TVs, and for a service, how to vet a provider.
+ Research to genuine depth — the standard is "a professional in this field," not
+ "a well-read shopper." Without this, every later step is a layperson guessing.
+ - **Scan the whole field**, not the first page of results — established,
+ challenger, and white-label/factory-direct layers.
+ - **Check tech currency and timing**: current generation vs imminent successor,
+ standards mid-transition, support/end-of-life horizon, early-adopter risk. A
+ correctly-priced product can still be the wrong buy for *when* it sits in the
+ cycle. This dimension is invisible to price tiers and is a common regret.
+ - **Separate real improvements from hype** (see `references/hype-filter.md`):
+ apply one test — does the feature change anything in *this person's* use? It
+ kills gimmicks (e.g. "AI" bolted onto things that gain nothing from it) and
+ rescues genuine improvements a cynic would dismiss. Don't tip into reflexive
+ "it's all marketing" skepticism — that's the same error reversed.
+ - **Bracket the curve, then find the knee.** First find both ends — the *low
+ end* (cheapest thing that genuinely solves the core problem; the floor) and the
+ *high end* (the best the category can do regardless of price; the ceiling, and
+ what you forgo lower down). Then locate the **knee** between them — where price
+ starts climbing faster than value *for this person's use*. Bracketing turns
+ "how much should I spend?" into "where on this known range do I belong?", which
+ is far easier to decide.
- Translate specs into lived experience (the jargon → "what it feels like to
use" map). The person came here precisely because they can't do this.
+ - **Seek the insider view** (see `references/insider-knowledge.md`). Every market
+ has asymmetric information — hunt what the *trade* knows that buyers don't, by
+ searching the trade frame ("how do mechanics pick their own used car") not the
+ consumer frame ("best used car dealer," which returns marketing). Surface where
+ the margin hides, what the pros buy for themselves, the model-specific defects
+ insiders check, and the channel they actually use. "What would someone in the
+ trade do" is often the most valuable line in the answer.
- Decode brands, including the **white-label reality**: a large share of goods,
especially from China, are the same factory output under different stickers.
- Knowing this collapses much of the "which brand" agonizing.
+ Then **decompose the price** (see `references/domain-and-premium.md`): how much
+ is substance, how much is brand premium (溢价), and does that premium buy
+ anything real here? Keep it symmetric — some premium is earned (QC, design,
+ after-sales, resale), some is pure name; the domain lens is what tells them
+ apart. Naming where the money goes is often the single most useful output.
### Phase 3 — Filter the information (the anti-manipulation engine)
The information environment is adversarial. See `references/source-weighting.md`.
Discount affiliate "best of" lists and inflated star averages; privilege
failure-mode reports, longevity and teardown evidence, and genuine community
consensus. Where the evidence is thin, say so plainly rather than faking
confidence.
### Phase 4 — Pick WHAT
Converge to **2–3 candidates**, not a ranked list pretending one answer is
- objectively best. Each candidate carries a one-line use-case rationale **and the
- tradeoff it represents**. Where the axis pointed to it, "more than one item" is a
- legitimate answer (e.g. two pans covering two real uses beats one mediocre
- do-everything pan).
+ objectively best. Each candidate (a product, provider, plan, or option) carries a
+ one-line use-case rationale **and the tradeoff it represents**. Where the axis
+ pointed to it, "more than one" is a legitimate answer (e.g. two pans covering two
+ real uses beats one mediocre do-everything pan). For a taste-dominated call,
+ present the informed shortlist and hand the final choice back.
- ### Phase 5 — Pick WHERE (only after WHAT is settled)
+ ### Phase 5 — Acquire: channel, provider, or terms (only after WHAT is settled)
- Channel and country are a *separate* decision about price vs risk vs logistics —
- never fold them into the product choice. See `references/sourcing-uk-china.md`.
- China-vs-local is category-dependent, never a blanket rule. Compute landed cost
- (customs, VAT, shipping) and weigh warranty, returns, and counterfeit risk
- against the saving. **Verify any duty/VAT/platform figures with live search
- before quoting them — that file's facts decay.**
+ *How* you get it is a separate decision from *what* it is — never fold them
+ together. What "how" means depends on the type:
+ - **Object** → where/country. Always price **both the local and the
+ China-domestic source** (the cheaper direction isn't fixed), then weigh the
+ channels — see `references/sourcing-uk-china.md` (a physical-goods module, worked
+ through a UK/China buyer; elicit the person's actual geography). Urgency,
+ region-lock, warranty, and voltage can each force the local channel regardless
+ of price. Compute landed cost; weigh warranty, returns, counterfeit risk.
+ **Verify any duty/VAT/platform figures live — that file's facts decay.**
+ - **Service** → which provider, and on what contract terms (scope, deposit,
+ recourse). A vetted referral usually beats a marketplace beats an ad.
+ - **Subscription** → which plan and billing term, and the cancellation/exit terms
+ — check the exit before the entrance.
+ - **Experience** → which booking route and *when* (dynamic pricing, booking
+ windows).
+ - **Financial / digital** → which issuer/store and which terms or licence; mind
+ legitimacy and the Boundaries above.
+
### Phase 6 — Commit
Close the loop so it actually terminates. Define "good enough," apply a quick
regret test ("if this is merely fine, am I okay with that?"), and state a
- stopping rule. This is where commitment-problem people enter the flow and
- information-problem people exit it.
+ stopping rule. Before the final push, a last check: is this comfortably
+ affordable, and is it a regulated/high-consequence decision that warrants a
+ professional (see Boundaries)? If so, inform and defer rather than push. This is
+ where commitment-problem people enter the flow and information-problem people exit
+ it.
- ## Output
+ ## Output — two parts, in this order
- Deliver the result using `templates/decision-brief.md`. Keep it short. The
- person did not come for a pros-and-cons table they've already read five times —
- they came to have the loop run *for* them and handed back a decision.
+ Deliver the result in two distinct parts using `templates/deliverable.md`. They
+ do different jobs; don't blend them.
+
+ **Part 1 — The Brief (the decision layer; read this).** Short — a minute or two.
+ The judgment, plus the *full reasoning* behind it: the chain from need → why this
+ → the tradeoff → confidence and what would change the call. Complete enough to
+ act on without reading further. This is not just a verdict; it's the logic, kept
+ tight. This is the only part the person must read.
+
+ **Part 2 — The Research Report (the evidence layer; scan or read).** Complete and
+ scannable, with headers so the person can jump. This is everything the agent
+ found — the market landscape, the domain lens, the price decomposition, tech
+ timing, hype-vs-real, insider knowledge, sourcing, source quality, the candidates
+ in detail, and an honest **confidence & gaps** section naming what's
+ well-evidenced, what's thin, and what was assumed but not verified. Its purpose is
+ trust: so the person can see *what the agent knows* and judge whether the decision
+ is reliable. The agent should have researched as comprehensively as possible — the
+ report is the proof it did.
+
+ The person did not come to do the work themselves. Part 1 spares them the
+ deliberation; Part 2 lets them verify it if they choose. Their only required
+ effort is reading a short brief.