niche-research-first-pass

niche-research-first-pass is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from kirillpolevoy/claude-saas-eval-skills. It costs 102 tokens per session (1,874 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A first-pass review of a niche software business idea for a small, lifestyle-focused team. It examines whether the idea could reach roughly $1–3 million in annual recurring revenue with one or two people.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to evaluate a niche software hypothesis, research a specific industry opportunity, and decide whether the market has a reachable group of buyers.
Why use it?
It helps expose weak demand, unclear distribution, excessive support work, or a sales process that would make the idea unsuitable for a small business.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one. Also seen: positional $N argument.

Good fit Use it to evaluate a niche software hypothesis, research a specific industry opportunity, and decide whether the market has a reachable group of buyers.

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Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/kirillpolevoy/claude-saas-eval-skills/niche-research-first-pass
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add kirillpolevoy/claude-saas-eval-skills --skill niche-research-first-pass
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/kirillpolevoy/claude-saas-eval-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for niche-research-first-pass

README.md
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Your own site
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Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

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Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/kirillpolevoy/claude-saas-eval-skills/niche-research-first-pass"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/kirillpolevoy/claude-saas-eval-skills/niche-research-first-pass.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 102 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,874 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00102 $0.01874
Opus 5 $0.00051 $0.00937
Sonnet 5 $0.00020 $0.00375
Haiku 4.5 $0.00010 $0.00187

Measured 12d ago against content hash bee77ab3170b, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

niche-research-first-pass scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 12d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

niche-research-first-pass/SKILL.md · 270 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 270 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Niche Research — First Pass (Lifestyle SaaS Lens)

Goal

Evaluate whether a niche can become a $1–3M ARR lifestyle business run solo or with 1 partner.

Ideal characteristics:

  • Simple product scope (v1 in 2–6 weeks)
  • Short sales cycle (< 30 days)
  • Low support burden (< 5 hrs/week at scale)
  • Concrete distribution (lists, channels, or high-intent inbound)
  • Pricing that requires < 2,000 customers for $1M ARR

Voice

State conclusions first, evidence second. If distribution is unclear after research, output FAIL: Distribution unclear and stop. No hedging with "could potentially" or "might be worth exploring." If data is missing, say "Unknown—requires primary research."

Inputs

Only ask for missing inputs:

  • Niche hypothesis (one sentence describing the market + problem)
  • Geography (where to focus research—no default assumed)
  • Buyer (if known)

Non-Negotiable Gate

A niche only passes if it has at least one concrete distribution surface:

Distribution Type Example
Clean buyer list Directory, licensing board, registry, permit database
Channel partner Supplier, distributor, association, insurer, payments provider
High-intent inbound Compliance forms, deadline-driven searches, "how to file X"
System-of-record hook Integration with existing workflow software

If none exist after research: output FAIL (distribution) and stop.

Process

Execute in order. Stop early if distribution fails.

1. Define the Niche Precisely

  • Who pays? Who uses daily?
  • What mandatory artifact exists? (forms, submissions, certificates, logs, reports)
  • What's the "money leak"? (lost renewals, rejected applications, admin hours, penalties, missed revenue)

2. Identify the Paperwork Wedge

  • What exact document/packet/submission is unavoidable?
  • What deadlines exist? (annual, quarterly, event-triggered)
  • Who gets blamed when it's wrong or late?

3. Competitor & Crowding Check

Read the full file on GitHub · 270 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 12d ago First seen · 270 lines · 102 tokens per session scan A bee77ab3170b

Subscribe to this mod's changes

niche-research-first-pass is a skill published in the GitHub repository kirillpolevoy/claude-saas-eval-skills (2 stars, last pushed 7mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 102 tokens to every session and 1,874 once invoked, about $0.0005 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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