Community Intel

Automated community intelligence gathering and trend monitoring for open-source projects and products.

Requirements

• Web search and fetch capabilities (web_search, web_fetch tools)
• Optional: Discord channel for posting reports (message tool)
• Optional: Email integration for delivering reports (AgentMail, Resend, or any email skill)

How It Works

Run as a nightly or weekly cron job. The agent searches multiple platforms for mentions of a target project/product, reads full threads, and compiles a structured intelligence report. Over time, it learns which sources are productive and adjusts accordingly.

Configuration

Set these in your cron message or workspace config:

PROJECT_NAME: "YourProject"
SEARCH_TERMS: ["yourproject", "your-project", "YourProject"]
SUBREDDITS: ["r/yourproject", "r/selfhosted", "r/programming"]
INTEL_FILE: "memory/project-intel.md"       # cumulative findings log
DISCORD_CHANNEL: ""                          # optional: channel ID for posting
EMAIL_TO: ""                                 # optional: email for delivery

Research Sources

Primary (search every run)

Source	What to search	Best for
Reddit	Project subreddit + related subs	Use cases, complaints, tips
Hacker News	site:news.ycombinator.com + project name	Technical discussion, launches
GitHub	Issues, discussions, new repos	Bug reports, feature requests, forks
Twitter/X	Project name + hashtags	Viral moments, announcements

Secondary (rotate or check weekly)

Source	What to search	Best for
YouTube	Project name + "tutorial" / "review"	Adoption trends, developer content
Blog posts	Medium, Substack, dev.to	Deep dives, experience reports
Product Hunt	Launches building on the project	Ecosystem growth
Academic papers	ArXiv, Google Scholar	Research using/studying the project

OpenClaw Cron Setup

Add via CLI:

openclaw cron add \
  --name "Community Intel" \
  --schedule "45 22 * * *" \
  --tz "America/Chicago" \
  --session-target isolated \
  --timeout 600 \
  --message "$(cat <<'EOF'
You are doing community research for [PROJECT_NAME].

Search for mentions across Reddit, Twitter/X, Hacker News, GitHub, and YouTube.
Look for: interesting use cases, creative integrations, tips and tricks,
new tools, complaints, security issues, and feature requests.

Steps:
1. Read [INTEL_FILE] for context on past findings and best sources
2. Search each platform for [SEARCH_TERMS]
3. Go deep -- read full threads, follow links, check comments
4. Compile findings into a structured summary
5. Append findings to [INTEL_FILE] with today's date and run number
6. Post summary to Discord channel [DISCORD_CHANNEL] (if configured)
7. Rate each source 1-3 stars based on today's yield

Be thorough. Quality over speed. If a source has nothing new, note that
so we can deprioritize it over time.
EOF
)"

Or add via config.patch:

{
  "cron": [{
    "name": "Community Intel",
    "schedule": "45 22 * * *",
    "tz": "America/Chicago",
    "sessionTarget": "isolated",
    "timeout": 600,
    "message": "You are doing community research for [PROJECT_NAME]..."
  }]
}

Report Format

Each run produces a report in this structure:

### YYYY-MM-DD (run N) -- Research Run

**Headline:** [one-line summary of biggest findings]

**🔥 Cool Use Cases**
- [Description with source link]

**💡 Tips & Tricks**
- [Practical discovery with details]

**🛠️ New Tools / Integrations**
- [New project, tool, or integration discovered]

**📢 Community Buzz**
- [Sentiment, complaints, praise, trends]

**🔒 Security / Risks**
- [Any security findings, vulnerabilities, concerns]

**📊 Source Quality**
- Reddit: ⭐⭐⭐ (active discussions)
- HN: ⭐⭐ (one thread)
- Twitter: ⭐ (quiet day)
- YouTube: ⭐⭐⭐ (new tutorials)

Intel File Structure

Maintain a cumulative intel file (INTEL_FILE) with three sections:

# [PROJECT_NAME] Intel

## Best Sources (updated YYYY-MM-DD, run N)
- **Reddit** ⭐⭐⭐ -- Active community, good use cases
- **Hacker News** ⭐⭐ -- Occasional deep technical threads
- **GitHub** ⭐⭐ -- Steady issue flow
- **Twitter/X** ⭐ -- Mostly retweets, low signal
- **YouTube** ⭐⭐⭐ -- Tutorial explosion lately

## Community Resources Discovered
- [tool-name](url) -- Description
- [directory-site](url) -- Curated list of projects

## Findings Log
### YYYY-MM-DD (run N)
... (newest first, oldest at bottom)

The agent reads this file at the start of each run to:

• Know which sources to prioritize
• Avoid reporting duplicate findings
• Track trends over time ("X was a complaint in run 5, fixed by run 12")

Research Techniques

Search query patterns that work well:

• "project-name" site:reddit.com -- Reddit mentions
• "project-name" site:news.ycombinator.com -- HN threads
• "project-name" tutorial OR guide OR setup -- How-to content
• "project-name" vs OR alternative OR competitor -- Competitive landscape
• "project-name" security OR vulnerability OR CVE -- Security issues
• "project-name" after:YYYY-MM-DD -- Only recent results

Reading threads effectively:

• Don't stop at the title. The real insights are in comment replies.
• Look for upvote counts -- high-upvote comments often contain the most useful info.
• Check who's commenting. Maintainers, power users, and industry people carry more signal.
• Note when the same complaint appears across multiple platforms -- that's a real issue.

Tips

• Quality over speed. Read full threads, don't just skim titles.
• Track source quality. Rate each source 1-3 stars per run. Deprioritize sources that consistently yield nothing.
• Note sentiment shifts. "People used to complain about X, now they praise it" is valuable signal.
• Flag security issues immediately. Don't wait for the next scheduled run.
• Keep the findings log trimmed. Archive entries older than 30 days to a separate file to keep the intel file under 100KB.
• Search variations. Try the project name with and without hyphens, abbreviations, and common misspellings.
• Track run numbers. Increment each run so you can reference "this was first spotted in run 14" for trend tracking.