Reverse Costing

Deconstruct competitor products to understand cost structure. Use for competitive pricing and cost analysis.

Security Scan

The skill's declared purpose, runtime instructions, and resource requirements are internally consistent: it is an instruction-only template for doing competitive cost estimates and requests no credentials or installs.

Purpose & Capability

Name and description match the SKILL.md: a high-level framework for estimating BOM, labor, overhead, and margin. The skill requests no binaries, env vars, or config paths — nothing extraneous to cost analysis is requested.

Instruction Scope

Instructions are high-level and template-driven (BOM estimation, wage rates, benchmarks). They do not explicitly instruct reading local files or transmitting data, but are vague and grant the agent broad discretion to gather external data or ask the user for inputs. This open-endedness can lead the agent to fetch web sources or request sensitive information if allowed.

Install Mechanism

No install spec and no code files — lowest-risk model: nothing will be written to disk or installed by the skill itself.

Credentials

The skill declares no environment variables, no primary credential, and no config paths. It does not ask for secrets or unrelated credentials.

Persistence & Privilege

always is false and the skill does not request persistent or elevated presence. Autonomous invocation is allowed by default (platform behavior) but the skill does not ask for extra privileges or to modify other skills.

Assessment

This skill is a coherent, low-risk instruction template for competitive cost estimation. Before installing, consider: (1) Do not provide proprietary cost spreadsheets or credentials to the agent — the skill may ask for inputs to run estimates. (2) If the agent has web access, it may fetch external benchmarks; restrict or monitor outbound access if you want to control sources. (3) Ensure any reverse-engineering or competitor analysis you perform complies with legal and ethical rules in your jurisdiction. (4) If you want tighter control, require the agent to ask for explicit permission before querying external sources or uploading any files.

Metadata

• Name: reverse-costing
• Description: Competitor cost structure analysis
• Triggers: reverse costing, competitor cost, teardown, cost structure

Instructions

Analyze competitor cost structure for $ARGUMENTS to understand pricing dynamics.

Framework

Cost Structure Analysis

Cost Component	Analysis Method
Materials	BOM estimation
Labor	Wage rates x hours
Overhead	Industry benchmarks
Margin	Price - cost

Output

## Reverse Cost Analysis: [Product/Competitor]

### Cost Breakdown

| Component | Our Cost | Est. Competitor | Difference |
|-----------|----------|-----------------|------------|
| Materials | $50 | $45 | +$5 |
| Labor | $20 | $15 | +$5 |
| Overhead | $15 | $12 | +$3 |
| **Total Cost** | **$85** | **$72** | **+$13** |

### Margin Analysis

| Metric | Us | Competitor |
|--------|-----|------------|
| Price | $120 | $110 |
| Cost | $85 | $72 |
| Margin | $35 | $38 |
| Margin % | 29% | 35% |

### Key Findings

1. **Cost Gap**: Competitor is $13 cheaper to produce
2. **Margin Gap**: Despite lower price, competitor has higher margin
3. **Drivers**: Lower labor and material costs

### Recommendations

1. [Recommendation 1]
2. [Recommendation 2]

Tips

• Use industry benchmarks
• Validate with multiple sources
• Consider scale advantages