feat: --competitors flag for auto-discovered comparison fan-out (#308)

Pass `--competitors` on a single-entity topic and the engine auto-discovers
2-6 peer entities via web search, runs the full pipeline on each in
parallel, and returns one N-way comparison reusing the existing 9-axis
Head-to-Head scaffold. `last30days OpenAI --competitors` resolves to
Anthropic + xAI + Google Gemini; `last30days Kanye West --competitors`
resolves to Drake + Kendrick Lamar + one more peer.

- New CLI flags: --competitors, --competitors=N, --competitors-list
- New scripts/lib/competitors.py — mirrors resolve.auto_resolve pattern
  (web search + deterministic text extraction, no internal LLM)
- New scripts/lib/fanout.py — ThreadPoolExecutor orchestrator; per-entity
  failures degrade gracefully as long as >=2 entities survive
- Multi-report render in scripts/lib/render.py reuses the comparison
  scaffold for the synthesis table
- LAW 7-style stderr when no backend and no list, pointing the hosting
  reasoning model at --competitors-list
- 38 new tests across CLI parsing, discovery, fanout, and rendering

Co-authored-by: Matt Van Horn <455140+mvanhorn@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Matt Van Horn
2026-04-22 21:28:36 -07:00
committed by GitHub
parent ff21243517
commit 5f054380c5
13 changed files with 1611 additions and 20 deletions
+195 -19
View File
@@ -122,6 +122,31 @@ def emit_output(report: schema.Report, emit: str, fun_level: str = "medium", sav
raise SystemExit(f"Unsupported emit mode: {emit}")
def emit_comparison_output(
entity_reports: list[tuple[str, schema.Report]],
emit: str,
fun_level: str = "medium",
save_path: str | None = None,
) -> str:
if emit == "json":
payload = {
"comparison": True,
"entities": [label for label, _ in entity_reports],
"reports": [
{"entity": label, "report": schema.to_dict(report)}
for label, report in entity_reports
],
}
return json.dumps(payload, indent=2, sort_keys=True)
if emit in {"compact", "md"}:
return render.render_comparison_multi(
entity_reports, fun_level=fun_level, save_path=save_path,
)
if emit == "context":
return render.render_comparison_multi_context(entity_reports)
raise SystemExit(f"Unsupported emit mode: {emit}")
def compute_save_path_display(save_dir: str, topic: str, suffix: str, emit: str) -> str:
"""Compute the user-friendly save path string that will be shown in the footer.
@@ -202,9 +227,85 @@ def build_parser() -> argparse.ArgumentParser:
help="Use web search to discover subreddits/handles before planning (for platforms without WebSearch)")
parser.add_argument("--github-user", help="GitHub username for person-mode search (e.g., steipete)")
parser.add_argument("--github-repo", help="Comma-separated owner/repo for project-mode search (e.g., openclaw/openclaw,paperclipai/paperclip)")
parser.add_argument(
"--competitors",
nargs="?",
const=3,
type=int,
default=None,
metavar="N",
help="Auto-discover N competitor entities and fan out last30days across all of them as a comparison (default N=3, range 1..6). Use --competitors-list to override discovery.",
)
parser.add_argument(
"--competitors-list",
dest="competitors_list",
help="Comma-separated competitor entities to skip discovery (e.g., 'Anthropic,xAI,Google Gemini'). Implies --competitors.",
)
return parser
COMPETITORS_MIN = 1
COMPETITORS_MAX = 6
COMPETITORS_DEFAULT = 3
def resolve_competitors_args(args: argparse.Namespace) -> tuple[bool, int, list[str]]:
"""Normalize --competitors / --competitors-list into (enabled, count, explicit_list).
- (False, 0, []) when neither flag is set.
- An explicit list always wins; count is derived from list length.
- A numeric count outside [1, 6] is clamped with a stderr warning.
- count <= 0 (explicit) raises SystemExit(2).
"""
explicit_list: list[str] = []
list_flag_provided = args.competitors_list is not None
if list_flag_provided:
explicit_list = [
entity.strip()
for entity in args.competitors_list.split(",")
if entity.strip()
]
if not explicit_list:
sys.stderr.write("[Competitors] --competitors-list is empty.\n")
raise SystemExit(2)
competitors_flag = args.competitors
list_present = bool(explicit_list)
flag_present = competitors_flag is not None
if not list_present and not flag_present:
return False, 0, []
if list_present:
count = len(explicit_list)
if flag_present and competitors_flag != count:
sys.stderr.write(
f"[Competitors] --competitors={competitors_flag} ignored; using "
f"{count} entries from --competitors-list.\n"
)
if count > COMPETITORS_MAX:
sys.stderr.write(
f"[Competitors] --competitors-list has {count} entries, clamping to {COMPETITORS_MAX}.\n"
)
explicit_list = explicit_list[:COMPETITORS_MAX]
count = COMPETITORS_MAX
return True, count, explicit_list
# flag_present, no explicit list
count = competitors_flag
if count < COMPETITORS_MIN:
sys.stderr.write(
f"[Competitors] --competitors must be >= {COMPETITORS_MIN} (got {count}).\n"
)
raise SystemExit(2)
if count > COMPETITORS_MAX:
sys.stderr.write(
f"[Competitors] --competitors={count} exceeds max {COMPETITORS_MAX}; clamping.\n"
)
count = COMPETITORS_MAX
return True, count, []
def _missing_sources_for_promo(diag: dict[str, object]) -> str | None:
available = set(diag.get("available_sources") or [])
missing = []
@@ -359,24 +460,91 @@ def main() -> int:
if "perplexity" not in include.lower():
config["INCLUDE_SOURCES"] = f"{include},perplexity" if include else "perplexity"
report = pipeline.run(
topic=topic,
config=config,
depth=depth,
requested_sources=requested_sources,
mock=args.mock,
x_handle=args.x_handle,
x_related=x_related,
web_backend=args.web_backend,
external_plan=external_plan,
subreddits=subreddits,
tiktok_hashtags=tiktok_hashtags,
tiktok_creators=tiktok_creators,
ig_creators=ig_creators,
lookback_days=args.lookback_days,
github_user=github_user,
github_repos=github_repos,
)
comp_enabled, comp_count, comp_explicit = resolve_competitors_args(args)
def _main_runner() -> schema.Report:
return pipeline.run(
topic=topic,
config=config,
depth=depth,
requested_sources=requested_sources,
mock=args.mock,
x_handle=args.x_handle,
x_related=x_related,
web_backend=args.web_backend,
external_plan=external_plan,
subreddits=subreddits,
tiktok_hashtags=tiktok_hashtags,
tiktok_creators=tiktok_creators,
ig_creators=ig_creators,
lookback_days=args.lookback_days,
github_user=github_user,
github_repos=github_repos,
)
if comp_enabled:
from lib import competitors as competitors_mod
from lib import fanout, resolve as resolve_mod
if comp_explicit:
discovered = comp_explicit
else:
if not resolve_mod._has_backend(config) and not args.mock:
sys.stderr.write(
"[Competitors] --competitors requires either a configured web "
"search backend (BRAVE_API_KEY / EXA_API_KEY / SERPER_API_KEY / "
"PARALLEL_API_KEY) or an explicit --competitors-list. If you are "
"the hosting reasoning model (Claude Code, Codex, Hermes, "
"Gemini, or any agent runtime), generate a comma-separated list "
"of 2-6 peer entities for the topic and re-invoke with "
"--competitors-list=\"A,B,C\". You do not need API keys; you ARE "
"the LLM. The web-search discovery path below is the headless / "
"credentialed path only.\n"
)
return 2
discovered = competitors_mod.discover_competitors(
topic, comp_count, config, lookback_days=args.lookback_days,
)
if not discovered:
sys.stderr.write(
f"[Competitors] No peers discovered for {topic!r}; aborting "
"comparison run. Pass --competitors-list to override.\n"
)
return 2
sys.stderr.write(
f"[Competitors] Comparing: {topic} vs " + " vs ".join(discovered) + "\n"
)
def _competitor_runner(entity: str) -> schema.Report:
return pipeline.run(
topic=entity,
config=config,
depth=depth,
requested_sources=requested_sources,
mock=args.mock,
web_backend=args.web_backend,
lookback_days=args.lookback_days,
)
entity_reports = fanout.run_competitor_fanout(
main_topic=topic,
main_runner=_main_runner,
competitors=discovered,
competitor_runner=_competitor_runner,
)
if len(entity_reports) < 2:
progress.end_processing()
sys.stderr.write(
f"[Competitors] Fewer than 2 sub-runs survived ({len(entity_reports)}); "
"cannot render a comparison. Re-run without --competitors or check the "
"warnings above.\n"
)
return 1
report = entity_reports[0][1]
report.artifacts["competitor_reports"] = entity_reports
else:
report = _main_runner()
except Exception as exc:
progress.end_processing()
progress.show_error(str(exc))
@@ -420,7 +588,15 @@ def main() -> int:
)
report.artifacts["pre_research_flags_present"] = pre_research_flags_present
rendered = emit_output(report, args.emit, fun_level=fun_level, save_path=footer_save_path)
entity_reports = report.artifacts.get("competitor_reports") if hasattr(report, "artifacts") else None
if entity_reports:
rendered = emit_comparison_output(
entity_reports, args.emit, fun_level=fun_level, save_path=footer_save_path,
)
else:
rendered = emit_output(
report, args.emit, fun_level=fun_level, save_path=footer_save_path,
)
if args.save_dir:
save_path = save_output(report, args.emit, args.save_dir, suffix=args.save_suffix or "")
sys.stderr.write(f"[last30days] Saved output to {save_path}\n")
+199
View File
@@ -0,0 +1,199 @@
"""Discover peer entities ("competitors") for a topic via web search.
Mirrors the `resolve.auto_resolve()` pattern: fan out 2-3 web searches via
`grounding.web_search()`, then extract capitalized entity candidates from
titles and snippets with deterministic text mining. No LLM call — the
hosting reasoning model can always override discovery via
`--competitors-list`.
Returned list is ordered by score (frequency across queries) and capped to
the caller's requested count.
"""
from __future__ import annotations
import re
import sys
from collections import Counter
from concurrent.futures import ThreadPoolExecutor, as_completed
from . import dates, grounding
from .resolve import _has_backend
# A "brand-shaped" token starts with uppercase OR is camelCase with an
# uppercase letter later. Catches "Anthropic", "OpenAI", "xAI", "iPhone",
# "eBay", "Hugging", "Face".
_BRAND_TOKEN = (
r"(?:[A-Z][A-Za-z0-9&.\-]*"
r"|[a-z][A-Za-z0-9&.\-]*[A-Z][A-Za-z0-9&.\-]*)"
)
# A capitalized phrase of 1-4 brand tokens separated by whitespace.
_CAPITALIZED_PHRASE = re.compile(
rf"\b{_BRAND_TOKEN}(?:\s+{_BRAND_TOKEN}){{0,3}}\b"
)
# Title-case fillers common in listicle SERPs. Kept flat — extraction
# rejects a candidate whose entire tokens are stopwords, not candidates
# that merely contain one.
_STOPWORD_TOKENS: frozenset[str] = frozenset(
token.lower()
for token in (
# Listicle fillers
"Top", "Best", "Worst", "Popular", "Leading", "Similar",
"Alternatives", "Alternative", "Competitor", "Competitors",
"vs", "Vs", "Versus", "Review", "Reviews", "Comparison",
"Guide", "List", "Lists", "Full", "Complete", "Free", "Paid",
"Tools", "Tool", "Options", "Rivals", "Rival", "Similar",
"Pick", "Picks", "Ranking", "Ranked", "Recommended",
# Grammar / time
"The", "A", "An", "Of", "In", "For", "To", "With", "On", "At",
"By", "From", "Is", "Are", "And", "Or", "But", "Than", "As",
"This", "That", "These", "Those", "Our", "Your", "Their",
"January", "February", "March", "April", "May", "June", "July",
"August", "September", "October", "November", "December",
# Years likely to appear as standalone tokens
*(str(year) for year in range(2018, 2031)),
# Miscellaneous SERP noise
"AI", "Apps", "App", "Software", "Platform", "Service", "Startups",
"Companies", "Company", "Products", "Product", "Brands", "Brand",
)
)
def _log(msg: str) -> None:
print(f"[Competitors] {msg}", file=sys.stderr)
def _topic_tokens(topic: str) -> set[str]:
"""Return lowercase alphanumeric tokens of the topic for filtering."""
return {tok for tok in re.findall(r"[A-Za-z0-9]+", topic.lower()) if tok}
def _candidate_ok(candidate: str, topic_tokens: set[str]) -> bool:
"""Filter a candidate phrase against stopwords and topic overlap."""
tokens = [t for t in re.findall(r"[A-Za-z0-9&.\-]+", candidate) if t]
if not tokens:
return False
# Reject candidates made entirely of stopwords (e.g., "Top Alternatives").
if all(tok.lower() in _STOPWORD_TOKENS for tok in tokens):
return False
# Reject candidates that overlap with the topic (e.g., topic="OpenAI"
# should not return "OpenAI Alternatives" or "OpenAI").
lower_tokens = {tok.lower() for tok in tokens}
if lower_tokens & topic_tokens:
return False
# Reject too-short one-letter tokens like "I" or single digits.
if len(tokens) == 1 and len(tokens[0]) < 2:
return False
return True
def _normalize_candidate(candidate: str) -> str:
"""Collapse whitespace and strip trailing punctuation."""
return re.sub(r"\s+", " ", candidate).strip(".,;:!?'\"()[] ")
def _extract_peer_entities(
items: list[dict], topic: str, limit: int,
) -> list[str]:
"""Score capitalized candidates across SERP items and return top `limit`.
Scoring is bag-of-phrases frequency across all items in the input. Ties
are broken by first-seen order so the output is deterministic.
"""
topic_tokens = _topic_tokens(topic)
counts: Counter[str] = Counter()
first_seen: dict[str, int] = {}
order = 0
# Group candidates into a frequency map keyed by lowercased normalized
# form so "xAI" and "xAI" count together regardless of case.
canonical: dict[str, str] = {}
for item in items:
text = f"{item.get('title', '')} {item.get('snippet', '')}"
for raw in _CAPITALIZED_PHRASE.findall(text):
candidate = _normalize_candidate(raw)
if not _candidate_ok(candidate, topic_tokens):
continue
key = candidate.lower()
if key not in canonical:
canonical[key] = candidate
first_seen[key] = order
order += 1
counts[key] += 1
ranked_keys = sorted(
counts.keys(),
key=lambda k: (-counts[k], first_seen[k]),
)
return [canonical[k] for k in ranked_keys[:limit]]
def _queries_for(topic: str) -> dict[str, str]:
return {
"competitors": f"{topic} competitors",
"alternatives": f"{topic} alternatives",
"vs": f"{topic} vs",
}
def discover_competitors(
topic: str,
count: int,
config: dict,
*,
lookback_days: int = 30,
) -> list[str]:
"""Discover `count` peer entities for `topic` via web search.
Args:
topic: The primary research topic.
count: Desired number of competitor entities (1..N).
config: Runtime config dict — expects the same shape as the engine
config (BRAVE_API_KEY / EXA_API_KEY / SERPER_API_KEY / etc.).
lookback_days: Date range for freshness. Defaults to 30.
Returns:
A list of up to `count` entity names, deduped and ordered by score.
Empty list when no web backend is configured or every search fails
or returns zero usable candidates.
"""
if count < 1:
return []
if not _has_backend(config):
_log("No web search backend available, skipping competitor discovery")
return []
date_range = dates.get_date_range(lookback_days)
queries = _queries_for(topic)
collected: list[dict] = []
searches_run = 0
def _search(label: str, query: str) -> tuple[str, list[dict]]:
items, _artifact = grounding.web_search(query, date_range, config)
return label, items
with ThreadPoolExecutor(max_workers=len(queries)) as executor:
futures = {
executor.submit(_search, label, q): label
for label, q in queries.items()
}
for future in as_completed(futures):
label = futures[future]
try:
_label, items = future.result()
collected.extend(items)
searches_run += 1
except Exception as exc:
_log(f"Search failed for {label}: {exc}")
if not collected:
_log(f"No SERP results for {topic!r} across {searches_run}/{len(queries)} queries")
return []
entities = _extract_peer_entities(collected, topic, limit=count)
_log(
f"Discovered {len(entities)} competitor(s) for {topic!r} "
f"from {searches_run}/{len(queries)} queries: {entities}"
)
return entities
+85
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@@ -0,0 +1,85 @@
"""Parallel multi-entity fan-out for the --competitors flag.
The orchestrator accepts a `main_runner()` for the topic and a
`competitor_runner(entity)` for each peer. It parallelizes their execution
via a `ThreadPoolExecutor` and collects per-entity Reports. Per-entity
failures are logged and dropped; the run survives as long as the main topic
plus at least one competitor succeed.
This module owns no business logic about pipeline arguments — the caller
(scripts/last30days.py main) builds the closures with the appropriate
config, depth, and overrides for each entity.
"""
from __future__ import annotations
import sys
from concurrent.futures import ThreadPoolExecutor, as_completed
from typing import Callable
from . import schema
# Sub-runs hit the same upstream APIs as the main topic. Cap parallelism so a
# 6-way fan-out does not stampede a single backend's rate limit.
MAX_PARALLEL_SUBRUNS = 6
def _log(msg: str) -> None:
print(f"[Fanout] {msg}", file=sys.stderr)
def run_competitor_fanout(
*,
main_topic: str,
main_runner: Callable[[], schema.Report],
competitors: list[str],
competitor_runner: Callable[[str], schema.Report],
) -> list[tuple[str, schema.Report]]:
"""Run main + competitor pipelines in parallel; return surviving reports.
Args:
main_topic: Display label for the user's primary topic.
main_runner: Zero-arg callable returning the main topic's Report.
competitors: Ordered list of competitor entity names.
competitor_runner: Callable(entity_name) -> Report for each peer.
Returns:
Ordered list of (entity_name, Report) tuples for runs that succeeded.
Empty list if every run raised; the caller decides how to surface
partial-failure modes.
"""
if not competitors:
report = main_runner()
return [(main_topic, report)]
workers = min(len(competitors) + 1, MAX_PARALLEL_SUBRUNS)
def _run_one(label: str, fn: Callable[[], schema.Report]) -> tuple[str, schema.Report | None, Exception | None]:
try:
return label, fn(), None
except Exception as exc:
return label, None, exc
submissions: list[tuple[str, Callable[[], schema.Report]]] = [
(main_topic, main_runner),
]
for entity in competitors:
submissions.append((entity, lambda e=entity: competitor_runner(e)))
with ThreadPoolExecutor(max_workers=workers) as executor:
futures = {
executor.submit(_run_one, label, fn): label
for label, fn in submissions
}
results: dict[str, schema.Report] = {}
for future in as_completed(futures):
label, report, exc = future.result()
if exc is not None:
_log(f"Sub-run failed for {label!r}: {type(exc).__name__}: {exc}")
continue
assert report is not None
results[label] = report
# Preserve the original submission order rather than completion order so
# the comparison render is deterministic across runs.
return [(label, results[label]) for label, _ in submissions if label in results]
+159
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@@ -392,6 +392,165 @@ def _render_comparison_scaffold(topic: str) -> list[str]:
]
def render_comparison_multi(
entity_reports: list[tuple[str, schema.Report]],
*,
cluster_limit: int = 4,
fun_level: str = "medium",
save_path: str | None = None,
) -> str:
"""Render N (entity, Report) pairs as a single comparison output.
Reuses _render_comparison_scaffold for the synthesis table and emits
per-entity evidence sections inside one EVIDENCE FOR SYNTHESIS envelope.
The single-Report render_compact path is unchanged.
Args:
entity_reports: Ordered (label, Report) pairs. The first pair is the
user's main topic; the remainder are discovered/explicit competitors.
cluster_limit: Max clusters to surface per entity (kept lower than the
single-entity default to keep N-way comparisons readable).
fun_level: Same fun-level knob as render_compact, applied to each
entity's best-takes block.
save_path: Optional save-path display string for the footer.
"""
if not entity_reports:
raise ValueError("render_comparison_multi requires at least one report")
entities = [label for label, _ in entity_reports]
main_label, main_report = entity_reports[0]
synthesized_topic = " vs ".join(entities)
lines: list[str] = [
*_render_badge(),
f"# last30days v3.0.0: {synthesized_topic}",
"",
*_assistant_safety_lines(),
f"- Comparison mode: {len(entities)} entities ({', '.join(entities)})",
f"- Date range: {main_report.range_from} to {main_report.range_to}",
"",
]
aggregated_warnings: list[str] = []
for label, report in entity_reports:
aggregated_warnings.extend(f"[{label}] {w}" for w in report.warnings)
if aggregated_warnings:
lines.append("## Warnings")
lines.extend(f"- {w}" for w in aggregated_warnings)
lines.append("")
lines.append(
"<!-- EVIDENCE FOR SYNTHESIS: read this, do not emit verbatim. Transform into "
"`What I learned:` prose per LAW 2. Each entity has its own evidence subsection. -->"
)
lines.append("")
fun_params = _FUN_LEVELS.get(fun_level, _FUN_LEVELS["medium"])
for label, report in entity_reports:
lines.extend(_render_entity_evidence_block(
label=label,
report=report,
cluster_limit=cluster_limit,
fun_params=fun_params,
))
lines.append("<!-- END EVIDENCE FOR SYNTHESIS -->")
lines.append("")
# Reuse the existing comparison scaffold by feeding it the synthesized
# topic. _parse_comparison_entities splits on " vs " so the scaffold
# picks up all N entities automatically.
scaffold = _render_comparison_scaffold(synthesized_topic)
lines.extend(scaffold)
footer = _render_emoji_footer(main_report, save_path)
if footer:
lines.append("")
lines.append("<!-- PASS-THROUGH FOOTER: emit verbatim in the model response per LAW 5. -->")
lines.extend(footer)
lines.append("<!-- END PASS-THROUGH FOOTER -->")
lines.extend(_render_canonical_boundary())
return "\n".join(lines).strip() + "\n"
def _render_entity_evidence_block(
*,
label: str,
report: schema.Report,
cluster_limit: int,
fun_params: dict,
) -> list[str]:
"""Render one entity's clusters and best-takes inside the evidence envelope."""
candidate_by_id = {c.candidate_id: c for c in report.ranked_candidates}
out: list[str] = [f"## {label}", ""]
if not report.clusters:
out.append("(no significant discussion this month)")
out.append("")
return out
out.append("### Ranked Evidence Clusters")
out.append("")
for index, cluster in enumerate(report.clusters[:cluster_limit], start=1):
out.append(
f"#### {index}. {cluster.title} "
f"(score {cluster.score:.0f}, {len(cluster.candidate_ids)} item"
f"{'s' if len(cluster.candidate_ids) != 1 else ''}, "
f"sources: {', '.join(_source_label(s) for s in cluster.sources)})"
)
if cluster.uncertainty:
out.append(f"- Uncertainty: {cluster.uncertainty}")
for rep_index, candidate_id in enumerate(cluster.representative_ids, start=1):
candidate = candidate_by_id.get(candidate_id)
if not candidate:
continue
out.extend(_render_candidate(candidate, prefix=f"{rep_index}."))
out.append("")
best_takes = _render_best_takes(
report.ranked_candidates,
limit=fun_params["limit"],
threshold=fun_params["threshold"],
)
if best_takes:
out.extend(best_takes)
out.append("")
return out
def render_comparison_multi_context(
entity_reports: list[tuple[str, schema.Report]],
cluster_limit: int = 4,
) -> str:
"""Context-mode rendering for the multi-entity comparison."""
if not entity_reports:
raise ValueError("render_comparison_multi_context requires at least one report")
entities = [label for label, _ in entity_reports]
lines = [
f"Comparison: {' vs '.join(entities)}",
f"Entities: {len(entities)}",
_AI_SAFETY_NOTE,
"",
]
for label, report in entity_reports:
lines.append(f"## {label}")
lines.append(f"Intent: {report.query_plan.intent}")
if not report.clusters:
lines.append("- (no significant discussion this month)")
else:
for cluster in report.clusters[:cluster_limit]:
lines.append(
f"- {cluster.title} "
f"[{', '.join(_source_label(s) for s in cluster.sources)}]"
)
lines.append("")
return "\n".join(lines).strip() + "\n"
def render_full(report: schema.Report) -> str:
"""Full data dump: ALL clusters + ALL items by source. For saved files and debugging."""
# Start with the same header as compact