Is porters-five-forces safe to install?

SaferSkills independently audited porters-five-forces (Agent Skill) and scored it 100/100 (green). The audit ran 55 deterministic rules across Security, Supply Chain, Maintenance, Transparency, and Community; it found 0 high-severity and 0 lower-severity findings. The full rule-by-rule trace and per-finding evidence are below. Free, methodology-open.

CategoryWeightCategory scoreContribution

Securityprompt, exec, net, exfil, eval

35%

100

35.0 pts

Supply chainhash, typosquat, maintainer, lockfile

20%

100

20.0 pts

Maintenancestaleness, pinning, CI

15%

100

15.0 pts

TransparencySKILL.md, perms, README

15%

100

15.0 pts

Communityinstalls, verify, response

15%

100

15.0 pts

Findings & checks · 0 flagged

Securityscore 100 · 0 findings

✓—All security checks passedNo findings in this category for the latest scan.pass

Supply chainscore 100 · 0 findings

✓—All supply chain checks passedNo findings in this category for the latest scan.pass

Maintenancescore 100 · 0 findings

✓—All maintenance checks passedNo findings in this category for the latest scan.pass

Transparencyscore 100 · 0 findings

✓—All transparency checks passedNo findings in this category for the latest scan.pass

Communityscore 100 · 0 findings

✓—All community checks passedNo findings in this category for the latest scan.pass

The primary manifest — the file an agent reads to learn what this artifact does.

skills/reasoning-strategy/porters-five-forces/SKILL.md · 1 file

skills/reasoning-strategy/porters-five-forces/SKILL.md20.7 KB · Markdown

name: porters-five-forces

# description: routing-facing summary of when this skill activates and what it covers.

description: "Use when analyzing an industry's competitive structure and profit pool using Porter's Five Forces: rivalry among existing competitors, threat of new entrants, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, and threat of substitutes. Covers industry-boundary definition, force-by-force diagnostics, structural drivers, dynamic trends, profitability implications, strategic positioning options, and the distinction between industry attractiveness and firm-specific advantage. Do NOT use for creating an integrated strategy cascade (use playing-to-win), classifying durable moat sources (use Seven Powers when available), backlog scoring (use prioritization), or generic market sizing."

# license: SPDX-compatible license identifier for the skill content.

license: MIT

# compatibility: runtime and portability notes for this skill.

compatibility:

notes: "Markdown, strategy memos, market-entry analysis, competitive strategy, executive decision-making"

allowed-tools: Read Grep

# metadata: Skill Metadata Protocol fields encoded under Agent Skills-compatible frontmatter.

metadata:

# schema_version: protocol contract version this skill conforms to.

# Integer 8. Prior contract retrievable via `git show schema-v7:schemas/skill.schema.json`.

# version: skill content version (semver). Bumped when the instructional content changes.

# === v8 Classification (subject + public; polyhierarchy via subjects[]) — see ADR-0020 ===

# subject: primary browse shelf — what the skill teaches. One of twelve closed values:

# backend-engineering / frontend-engineering / software-architecture / data-engineering / agent-ops / ai-engineering /

# quality-assurance / design / reasoning-strategy / software-engineering-method / knowledge-organization / product-domain.

subject: reasoning-strategy

# public: publishability / private-data gate. true = safe for public release; false = private/internal.

# Project anchoring lives in project[] and requires grounding when present.

# scope: required free-text PRD-style statement of what the skill teaches and does not.

scope: "Industry competitive-structure analysis using Porter's Five Forces — defining industry boundaries, diagnosing each of the five forces (rivalry, new entrants, supplier power, buyer power, substitutes) by their structural drivers, reading dynamic trends, and translating force intensity into profit-pool and positioning implications. Portable across any domain doing competitive or market-structure analysis; principle-grounded, not repo-bound. Excludes integrated strategy-cascade design (playing-to-win), durable-moat classification (seven-powers), task/option scoring (prioritization), and generic market sizing."

# public: publishability / private-data gate. true = safe for public release; false = private/internal.

public: true

# taxonomy_domain: optional hierarchical sub-path within `subject`. Slash-delimited

# lowercase kebab-case segments. rename of the original v8 `domain`. Remove when the flat

# `subject` is sufficient.

taxonomy_domain: foundations/strategy

# owner: team handle, GitHub username, or tool name responsible for keeping this skill current.

# freshness: ISO date the skill body was last reviewed or updated.

# drift_check: truth-source verification record. Object with required `last_verified`

# (ISO date) and optional `truth_source_hashes`. Record hashes with:

# `node scripts/skill-graph-drift.js --record --apply <skill-dir>`.

# === Evaluation Status: three orthogonal axes ===

# eval_artifacts: disk-truth — does an eval file exist on disk?

# none (no intent) / planned (intent declared, no file yet) / present (file exists).

# eval_state: runtime-truth — has the eval been run and passed?

# unverified (no run yet, or no file) / passing (one-shot green) / monitored (cadenced green).

# `monitored` is strictly stronger than `passing` — a forward state for continuous runs.

# routing_eval: routing-coverage — is the skill's activation verified by the harness?

# absent (not verified) / present (gated by lint check 12; harness must exit 0).

# comprehension_state: marker that this skill has populated v6+ Understanding fields

# (mental_model, purpose, boundary, analogy, misconception). Value: `present` or absent.

# stability: lifecycle marker. One of:

# experimental (active development) / stable (production-ready) /

# frozen (no further changes expected) / deprecated.

# When `deprecated`, schema's allOf REQUIRES `superseded_by: <real-skill-name>`.

stability: stable

# keywords: semantic phrases for fuzzy router activation. v8 cap: max 10.

# Keep terms a user would actually type when starting a task in this skill's domain.

keywords: ["porter five forces","porters five forces","five forces","industry structure","competitive forces","buyer power","supplier power","threat of entrants","threat of substitutes","competitive rivalry"]

# examples: 2-5 realistic user prompts the skill SHOULD activate for.

# Written in the user's voice. Improves retrieval recall beyond keywords alone.

examples: ["analyze this market with Porter's Five Forces","which forces make this industry unattractive?","is supplier power or buyer power the bigger risk in this category?","we are entering a new market; diagnose industry structure before we choose a position","map how substitutes and new entrants could change the profit pool"]

# anti_examples: near-miss prompts that should route ELSEWHERE.

# Pair with relations.suppresses to indicate the confusable territory's owner.

anti_examples: ["turn this vague product strategy into where-to-play and how-to-win choices","rank these roadmap items by expected impact","estimate the TAM for this market","classify this company's durable moat source","write OKRs for the chosen strategy"]

# relations: typed graph edges to sibling skills. Six edge types:

# related (adjacency for browse / co-routing expansion) /

# suppresses (exclude listed skills from co-routing when THIS skill wins;

# write reason as "I own this exclusively over X", not "use X instead") /

# verify_with (cross-check; co-loaded as one-hop expansion) /

# depends_on (composition; transitive — A→B→C loads all three) /

# broader / narrower (SKOS-style generalization; broader drives co-load, narrower does not).

# grounding: required when non-empty `project[]`. Declares the truth sources

# the skill anchors to and the failure modes those sources prevent. Omit when the

# skill is universal-knowledge. `subject_matter` replaces v8 `domain_object`.

grounding: "{\"subject_matter\":\"Porter's Five Forces competitive strategy framework\",\"grounding_mode\":\"universal\",\"truth_sources\":[\"https://www.isc.hbs.edu/strategy/business-strategy/Pages/the-five-forces.aspx\",\"https://hbr.org/2008/01/the-five-competitive-forces-that-shape-strategy\",\"skills/reasoning-strategy/porters-five-forces/references/porters-five-forces-sources.md\",\"skills/reasoning-strategy/porters-five-forces/references/upstream-displacement-2026-05-26.md\"],\"failure_modes\":[\"industry_boundary_too_broad\",\"direct_competitor_only_view\",\"force_names_listed_without_drivers\",\"firm_strength_confused_with_industry_structure\",\"substitutes_confused_with_rivals\",\"market_size_substituted_for_profitability\",\"static_snapshot_ignores_trends\"],\"evidence_priority\":\"general_knowledge_first\"}"

# portability: external-runtime export claims. Object with:

# readiness — declared (claim only) / scripted (export tooling exists) /

# verified (proven with a receipt artifact).

# targets — array; currently only `skill-md` is in the enum.

# lifecycle: maintenance policy for the drift sentinel.

# stale_after_days — skill flagged STALE when N days past `drift_check.last_verified`.

# review_cadence — process commitment (quarterly / monthly / annual), not a calendar fact.

# === Understanding fields (when comprehension_state: present) ===

# mental_model: the primitives of the concept and how they relate. One paragraph.

mental_model: "Porter's Five Forces treats profitability as a structural outcome of five pressures around an industry, not just the visible fight among direct competitors. The primitives are the industry boundary, buyers, suppliers, potential entrants, substitutes, current rivals, structural drivers behind each force, and the resulting division of economic value across the profit pool."

# purpose: the problem this concept solves and why the field exists. One paragraph.

purpose: "This skill prevents agents from mistaking a market summary, TAM estimate, competitor list, or company-strength memo for competitive strategy analysis. It replaces shallow market attractiveness prose with a force-by-force diagnosis of who can capture value, who can bid it away, which forces are changing, and what strategic position or no-go decision follows."

# boundary: what this concept is NOT. Distinguishes from adjacent skills by naming the

# MECHANISM that differs, not just the label. Universal terms only — no repo-specific nouns.

concept_boundary: "Five Forces is for industry-structure and profit-pool diagnosis. It is not a Playing to Win strategy cascade, Seven Powers moat taxonomy, SWOT inventory, PESTEL macro scan, market-sizing model, OKR system, backlog prioritization method, or firm-specific capability audit. Those tools can feed or follow the analysis, but they do not replace the five structural forces."

# analogy: one-sentence metaphor preserving the core mechanism.

analogy: "Five Forces is like checking the pressure on all sides of a container: the firm may be strong, but the industry's structure determines where the pressure leaks value away."

# misconception: the wrong mental model people bring; corrected explicitly.

misconception: "The common mistake is treating Five Forces as a checklist of five labels or as a direct-competitor analysis. The method only works when each force is tied to structural drivers and then translated into profitability, positioning, and change over time."

# === Health Block (written by the audit loop, not hand-authored) ===

# See SKILL_AUDIT_LOOP.md § The Health Block. UNVERIFIED is the honest default.

# structural_verdict: form/export shape (gates 1-2, 7 — external mandates only).

# PASS / PASS_WITH_FIXES / FAIL / UNVERIFIED.

# truth_verdict: truth sources vs declared hashes (gates 3-6).

# PASS / DRIFT / BROKEN / UNVERIFIED.

# comprehension_verdict: gate 8 — cheap recitation smoke test. Never alone certifies.

# PASS / SHALLOW / REDUNDANT / UNVERIFIED / PROVISIONAL / SKIPPED_BASELINE_HIGH / NA.

# application_verdict: gate 9 — the primary quality signal. APPLICABLE is the only verdict

# that certifies the skill is USEFUL (grader-confirmed). PROVISIONAL = one model self-assessed.

# APPLICABLE / REDUNDANT / HARMFUL / MIXED / FALSE_POSITIVE / PROVISIONAL / UNVERIFIED.

relations:

related: ["prioritization","framework-fit-analysis","playing-to-win","constraint-awareness","epistemic-grounding"]

suppresses: ["playing-to-win","seven-powers","positioning"]

verify_with: ["constraint-awareness","epistemic-grounding"]

Porter's Five Forces

Concept of the skill

Porter's Five Forces treats profitability as a structural outcome of five pressures around an industry, not just the visible fight among direct competitors.

Concept Card

What it is: Porter's Five Forces is Michael Porter's competitive strategy framework for diagnosing industry structure: rivalry among existing competitors, threat of new entrants, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, and threat of substitutes.

Mental model: Competition for profits is broader than direct rivalry. Buyers, suppliers, entrants, substitutes, and current competitors each pressure the profit pool. The strategist's job is to understand which forces are strong, why they are strong, how they are changing, and how to position or reshape the business accordingly.

Why it exists: Agents often answer market-entry or competitive-strategy questions with a market-size summary, a competitor list, or generic strengths and weaknesses. Five Forces forces the analysis toward structural profit pressure: who can capture value, who can bid it away, and what that implies for strategy.

What it is not: It is not a strategy cascade, moat taxonomy, macro trend scan, firm capability audit, SWOT list, or TAM model. Those can support the work, but Five Forces owns industry-structure diagnosis.

Adjacent concepts: Industry attractiveness, profit pool, entry barriers, supplier concentration, buyer concentration, substitutes, rivalry intensity, positioning, reshaping industry structure.

One-line analogy: Five Forces is a pressure map around the profit pool.

Common misconception: Direct competitors are only one force. A quiet industry with powerful suppliers, powerful buyers, easy entry, or strong substitutes can still be structurally unattractive.

Coverage

This skill teaches agents to:

Define the industry boundary before analyzing forces.
Separate industry structure from firm-specific strengths.
Diagnose all five forces using structural drivers, not generic labels.
Distinguish substitutes from rivals.
Explain how each force affects price, cost, investment, and value capture.
Evaluate how trends change force strength over time.
Translate the analysis into positioning, reshape, or no-go implications.
Avoid false precision and unsupported force scores.

Philosophy of the skill

Five Forces is useful because it turns "is this a good market?" into a structural question. Market growth and customer demand can be attractive while profit potential remains weak because suppliers capture the value, buyers force concessions, substitutes cap willingness to pay, entry keeps prices low, or rivalry burns margin.

The framework is not a worksheet. Naming the five forces is not analysis. A useful Five Forces pass names the structural drivers behind each force and connects them to profitability. It also treats industry structure as dynamic: technology, regulation, distribution, standards, and business model shifts can change the forces.

Workflow

1. Define the industry boundary

State the unit of analysis before scoring anything.

Industry:
Geography:
Customer segment:
Product/service category:
Value-chain stage:
Time horizon:
Relevant alternatives:

If the boundary is too broad, split it. "Software", "retail", or "AI tools" is usually too broad for a useful force diagnosis.

2. Diagnose each force

Use structural drivers. Do not stop at high/medium/low labels.

Force	Core question	Common structural drivers
Threat of new entrants	How easily can new capacity enter and pressure prices or costs?	Economies of scale, switching costs, capital requirements, distribution access, regulation, brand, network effects, expected retaliation
Supplier power	Can suppliers raise input costs, restrict quality, or capture value?	Supplier concentration, differentiated inputs, switching costs, scarce talent or infrastructure, forward integration threat, lack of substitute inputs
Buyer power	Can customers force lower prices or higher service at the same price?	Buyer concentration, purchase volume, price sensitivity, product standardization, low switching costs, backward integration threat
Threat of substitutes	Can a different solution meet the same underlying need?	Attractive price-performance tradeoff, low switching costs, changing customer behavior, adjacent technologies, do-it-yourself or no-consumption alternatives
Rivalry among existing competitors	Do current competitors compete away value?	Number and balance of rivals, slow growth, high fixed costs, low differentiation, exit barriers, capacity additions, diverse goals

3. Score force strength with evidence

Use qualitative ratings only when tied to evidence.

Force:
Strength: low / medium / high
Evidence:
Profitability implication:
Trend direction: weakening / stable / strengthening
Uncertainty:

Avoid fake numeric precision unless the user supplies real data. A precise-looking 7.2/10 score without evidence is weaker than a clear qualitative judgment.

4. Explain the profit-pool effect

After the five force passes, explain how value is divided.

Ask:

Which actors capture the most value today?
Which actors can force concessions?
Which forces cap price?
Which forces raise cost or required investment?
Which force is most likely to change in the chosen time horizon?
Is the industry attractive, unattractive, or attractive only for a specific position?

5. Translate analysis into strategy implications

Five Forces should end with strategic implications, not a table alone.

Useful implications include:

choose a narrower industry segment,
position away from the strongest force,
build switching costs,
differentiate against substitutes,
vertically integrate or multi-source to reduce supplier power,
target a buyer segment with lower price sensitivity,
reshape the industry through standards, channels, partnerships, or business model changes,
decline entry when the structure is persistently unattractive.

Output Template

Use this compact shape for market-entry or strategy work.

Five Forces analysis

Industry boundary:
- Geography:
- Customer segment:
- Product/service category:
- Value-chain stage:
- Time horizon:

Force diagnosis:
1. New entrants
   - Strength:
   - Structural drivers:
   - Profit implication:
   - Trend:
2. Supplier power
   - Strength:
   - Structural drivers:
   - Profit implication:
   - Trend:
3. Buyer power
   - Strength:
   - Structural drivers:
   - Profit implication:
   - Trend:
4. Substitutes
   - Strength:
   - Structural drivers:
   - Profit implication:
   - Trend:
5. Rivalry
   - Strength:
   - Structural drivers:
   - Profit implication:
   - Trend:

Overall attractiveness:
Most important force:
Strategic implication:
Evidence gaps:

Anti-Patterns

Anti-pattern	Why it fails	Repair
Direct-rival-only analysis	Ignores four forces that can capture or destroy profits	Analyze entrants, suppliers, buyers, and substitutes explicitly
Market-size substitution	A large market can still be structurally unattractive	Connect structure to profitability, not just demand
Firm-strength confusion	A strong company can sit in a bad industry; a weak company can sit in a good one	Separate industry structure from relative position
Substitute/rival confusion	Substitutes meet the same need differently; rivals sell similar category offers	Define the customer need, then list different ways to meet it
Static snapshot	Industry structure changes with technology, regulation, and behavior	Add trend direction and time horizon to each force
Force-label checklist	Labels without drivers do not explain profit pressure	Name the structural drivers and value-capture mechanism
Universal "sixth force" add-on	Complementors can matter, but adding a sixth box often hides the original mechanism	Mention complements only when they materially change one of the five forces or value capture

Boundaries

Use Five Forces when the task is to diagnose industry structure and profit pressure.

Use another tool when the task is narrower or downstream:

Need	Better owner
Integrated strategy choices: aspiration, where to play, how to win, capabilities, systems	`playing-to-win`
Durable moat source taxonomy	Seven Powers skill when available
Internal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats	SWOT/TOWS skill when available
Macro-environment scan	PESTEL skill when available
Execution goals and measurable results	OKRs skill when available
Ranking backlog items or initiatives	`prioritization`
Choosing which framework to apply	`framework-fit-analysis`

Verification

Before finishing, verify:

[ ] The industry boundary is explicit.
[ ] All five forces are analyzed.
[ ] Each force includes structural drivers, not just a label.
[ ] Substitutes are separated from direct rivals.
[ ] Industry structure is separated from firm-specific capability.
[ ] Profitability implications are named.
[ ] Dynamic trends and time horizon are considered.
[ ] Strategic implications follow from the strongest forces.
[ ] Unverified assumptions and evidence gaps are labeled.
[ ] The response does not present market size, SWOT, PESTEL, OKRs, or a Playing to Win cascade as a Five Forces analysis.

References

references/porters-five-forces-sources.md
references/upstream-displacement-2026-05-26.md

Do NOT Use When

Use another skill when the task falls outside the declared scope, matches an anti_examples prompt, or is owned by a more specific related skill.

porters-five-forces— agent skill

Is porters-five-forces safe to install?

Porter's Five Forces

Concept of the skill

Concept Card

Coverage

Philosophy of the skill

Workflow

1. Define the industry boundary

2. Diagnose each force

3. Score force strength with evidence

4. Explain the profit-pool effect

5. Translate analysis into strategy implications

Output Template

Anti-Patterns

Boundaries

Verification

References

Do NOT Use When

Audit the pieces. Scan the whole. Decide.