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:

CODEBLOCK0

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 |

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 |

OpenClaw Cron Setup

Add via CLI:

CODEBLOCK1

Or add via config.patch:

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Report Format

Each run produces a report in this structure:

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Intel File Structure

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

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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
• INLINECODE7 -- HN threads
• INLINECODE8 -- How-to content
• INLINECODE9 -- Competitive landscape
• INLINECODE10 -- Security issues
• INLINECODE11 -- 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.