Product Research

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name: product-spy description: Meta-skill for finding e-commerce winning products by correlating social hype signals with marketplace competition data and preparing deployment-ready store listings. Use when users want trend scouting for dropshipping/white-label opportunities with explicit data gates and execution handoff. homepage: https://clawhub.ai user-invocable: true disable-model-invocation: false metadata: {"openclaw":{"emoji":"🕵️","requires":{"bins":["node","npx","goplaces"],"env":["TAVILY_API_KEY","GOOGLE_PLACES_API_KEY","MATON_API_KEY"],"config":[]},"note":"Requires local installation of tavily-search, goplaces, api-gateway, and at least one deployment path (woocommerce or shopify)."}}

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Purpose

Identify product opportunities by combining: 1. social momentum, 2. regional demand checks, 3. marketplace competition/sales signals, 4. store deployment readiness.

This is an orchestration skill. It does not guarantee profitability.

Required Installed Skills

tavily-search (inspected latest: 1.0.0)

goplaces (inspected latest: 1.0.0)

api-gateway (inspected latest: 1.0.29)

Deployment target:

- woocommerce via api-gateway (supported), or - shopify (inspected latest 1.0.1, currently under maintenance)

Install/update:

npx -y clawhub@latest install tavily-search
npx -y clawhub@latest install goplaces
npx -y clawhub@latest install api-gateway
npx -y clawhub@latest install shopify
npx -y clawhub@latest update --all

Verify:

npx -y clawhub@latest list

Required Credentials

TAVILY_API_KEY (trend and web data collection)

GOOGLE_PLACES_API_KEY (regional demand proxy via goplaces)

MATON_API_KEY (market/deployment APIs via api-gateway)

Preflight:

echo "$TAVILY_API_KEY" | wc -c
echo "$GOOGLE_PLACES_API_KEY" | wc -c
echo "$MATON_API_KEY" | wc -c

Mandatory behavior:

Never fail silently on missing keys.

Always return MissingAPIKeys with missing variables and blocked stages.

Continue with non-blocked stages and mark output as Partial when needed.

Inputs the LM Must Collect First

product_niche (example: pets)

target_region (country/city scope)

target_store (woocommerce or shopify)

risk_tolerance (low, medium, high)

max_cogs (maximum source cost)

min_margin_target (percentage)

shipping_time_limit_days

ad_angle (problem-solution, UGC demo, before-after)

Do not propose deployment before constraints are explicit.

Tool Responsibilities

tavily-search

Use for trend and sourcing discovery:

find viral product mentions and trend lists,

gather social evidence summaries,

locate supplier listings (AliExpress/Alibaba/web catalogs),

extract competitor storefront/product page signals.

goplaces

Use for regional demand proxy checks:

query related local businesses/search entities,

compare demand-like signals across cities/regions,

support geo-prioritization for launch/testing.

Important limitation:

goplaces is a Places API interface, not direct social trend telemetry.

Treat it as location demand context, not a standalone trend oracle.

api-gateway

Use for structured market and store operations when connections exist:

marketplace/analytics connectors if available in user account,

WooCommerce product draft creation,

optional Search Console-like enrichment if connected.

Operational constraints from inspected skill:

requires MATON_API_KEY

requires active per-app OAuth connections (ctrl.maton.ai)

API key alone is not sufficient

Capability disclosure:

woocommerce is explicitly listed in inspected api-gateway references.

shopify inspected skill is currently under maintenance and may be unavailable.

helium 10 and jungle scout are not explicitly listed as native api-gateway app names in the inspected version.

Canonical Causal Signal Chain

1. Trend Scan (tavily-search)

discover products with strong recent social momentum.

candidate example pattern: "TikTok made me buy it" + niche + last 7 days.

2. Social Evidence Scoring

score each candidate by recency, source diversity, and repeat mention frequency.

require at least 2 independent sources for shortlisting.

3. Regional Demand Check (goplaces)

check target-region relevance proxies.

prioritize products with cross-region consistency, not one-off spikes.

4. Market Data Gate (api-gateway)

attempt sales/competition metrics via connected provider.

if Helium 10/Jungle Scout path is unavailable, trigger explicit gate message and fallback mode.

Required gate format:

DataGateStatus: available or blocked

Reason: missing key / missing connection / provider unsupported

Action: exact remediation steps and link

If user requests Helium 10 discount onboarding:

include user-provided affiliate URL when available,

otherwise use placeholder explicitly as user action item: [HELIUM10_LINK_OR_COUPON].

If user requests Jungle Scout onboarding:

include user-provided affiliate URL when available,

otherwise use placeholder: [JUNGLESCOUT_LINK_OR_COUPON].

5. Sourcing Check (tavily-search)

find supplier options,

compare estimated COGS and shipping windows,

flag risky supplier signals (unclear shipping, no ratings, poor consistency).

6. Deployment

WooCommerce path: create product draft via api-gateway woocommerce endpoints.

Shopify path: if unavailable/maintenance, emit blocked deployment status and WooCommerce/manual fallback package.

7. Creative Output

generate product listing copy,

generate one TikTok ad script matched to selected angle.

Output Contract

Always return:

TrendCandidates

- shortlisted products - evidence score and sources

MarketCheck

- competition/sales insight - DataGate status and provider path used

SourcingTable

- supplier options - estimated COGS - shipping-time estimate - risk notes

StoreDraft

- title - product description - key benefits - price suggestion - draft payload for woocommerce or shopify (if available)

TikTokAdScript

- hook (first 2 seconds) - demo beats - CTA

NextActions

- exact steps to publish and test

Quality Gates

Before final output, verify:

trend evidence is recent and source-backed

product economics satisfy user constraints

deployment path is real (not assumed)

unsupported integrations are explicitly disclosed

missing keys/connections are clearly reported

If any gate fails, return Needs Revision with missing evidence/dependency list.

Failure Handling

Missing TAVILY_API_KEY: return MissingAPIKeys, skip trend/sourcing web stages, ask for seed product URLs.

Missing GOOGLE_PLACES_API_KEY: return MissingAPIKeys, skip regional-demand stage.

Missing MATON_API_KEY: return MissingAPIKeys, skip gateway market/deployment stages.

Missing api-gateway app connection (HTTP 400): keep pipeline running in analysis mode and provide connection setup steps.

Shopify unavailable (maintenance): mark deployment as blocked and provide WooCommerce/manual import fallback.

Helium 10/Jungle Scout unavailable via gateway: disclose unsupported provider path and continue with proxy competition analysis.

Guardrails

Never claim a product is guaranteed to win.

Never fabricate sales volume, margins, or review counts.

Never hide blocked provider paths.

Keep recommendations tied to observed evidence and declared assumptions.