---
name: trend-scouting
description: Cultural intelligence system. Discovers design signals, investigates them with primary sources, and builds cultural cases for CE's taste board.
---

# Trend Scouting

Julia discovers signals. Then she INVESTIGATES them — visits the actual work, finds independent evidence, builds a cultural case. This is research, not headline scanning.

## Agents

| Agent | Role | Trigger |
|-------|------|---------|
| **Julia** | Primary researcher | Daily cron + on-demand |
| **Jessica** | Signal spotter | Tags signals when processing #visual-input |
| **Kitt** | Orchestrator | Triggers targeted research before client meetings |
| **Any agent** | Consumer | Checks existing intelligence before project research |

## ⛔ DE-DUPLICATION GATE (MANDATORY)
Before posting ANY signal:
1. **READ** `strategic-intelligence/posted-signals.json` — contains every signal already posted
2. **CHECK** your signal title AND URL against the index
3. If it matches ANY existing entry → **SKIP IT. Find something new.**
4. After posting a new signal → **UPDATE** `posted-signals.json` with the new entry

**FAILURE MODE (March 2026):** Julia posted the same Dinamo ABC Schengen signal 6 days in a row because there was no de-dup check. This wasted Assaf's time and damaged trust. NEVER repeat a signal.

## The Research Model (Not Scanning)

### ❌ Old: Headline scanning
```
Read 6 sites → copy findings → label "High confidence" → done
```

### ✅ New: Cultural case building
```
1. DISCOVER: Scan publications for ONE interesting signal
2. CHECK DE-DUP: Read posted-signals.json — if already posted, find another
3. INVESTIGATE: Follow upstream to primary sources
   - Visit the actual work (screenshot the WORK, not the article)
   - Find the studio/agency — check their portfolio
   - Search for independent examples of the same pattern
   - Check for institutional/policy backing
   - Check for award validation
3. BUILD THE CASE: Document each INDEPENDENT evidence layer
4. RATE HONESTLY: Count truly independent sources
5. POST: One signal with full evidence chain
```

### De-Duplication Rules
- Multiple findings from the SAME report = **1 source**
- An article ABOUT a trend + the examples IN the article = **1 source** (the article)
- An article + a completely independent studio doing the same thing = **2 sources**
- Sources must be INDEPENDENT — not citing each other

## Pipeline

```
9am Lisbon → Julia scans for 1-3 real signals (not 5 headline copies)
    ↓
For each: investigates with primary sources + screenshots of actual work
    ↓
Create a new THREAD in #radar (channel 1467975831958716466):
  message(action="thread-create", channel="1467975831958716466",
          threadName="🔍 Trend Radar — [Day DD Mon YYYY]")
    ↓
Post each signal as a REPLY inside that thread:
  message(action="thread-reply", threadId="<id from above>", ...)
⚠️ NEVER post signals directly into #radar — always inside a thread
    ↓
Assaf 👍 to approve → Notion + taste board
    ↓
Weekly: review signal persistence, upgrade/downgrade confidence
```

## Sources (Discovery Phase)

### ✅ Working (verified 2026-03-10)
| Source | URL | Focus |
|--------|-----|-------|
| It's Nice That | itsnicethat.com | Creative work, studios |
| Creative Boom | creativeboom.com | Design, illustration, branding |
| Print Magazine | printmag.com | Design culture, typography |
| Typeroom | typeroom.eu | Typography, type design |
| Communication Arts | commarts.com | Design, advertising, illustration |
| Mindsparkle Mag | mindsparklemag.com | Branding, web design |
| Abduzeedo | abduzeedo.com | Design inspiration, trends |
| Typewolf | typewolf.com | Typography trends |

### ❌ Dead/Blocked (do NOT waste time on these)
| Source | Status | Since |
|--------|--------|-------|
| Brand New | Paywall | 2026-03 |
| Dezeen | 403 blocked | 2026-03 |
| BFRND | Timeout | 2026-03 |
| Eye on Design | Timeout | 2026-03 |
| The Brand Identity | Domain issues | 2026-03 |

## ⚡ SCRAPING TOOLS — MANDATORY (do NOT use bare web_fetch)

You have 4 installed tools. Use them in this order:

### 1. Pinchtab (PRIMARY — JS rendering, free, unlimited)
```bash
# Start server first (once per session):
nohup pinchtab --headless > /tmp/pinchtab.log 2>&1 &
sleep 3

# Navigate + extract text (cheap, fast):
pinchtab nav "https://example.com"
pinchtab text              # readable text, ~800 tokens

# Screenshot the actual work:
pinchtab ss -o /tmp/signal.png
```

### 2. Scrapling StealthFetcher (anti-bot bypass, Cloudflare)
```python
from scrapling import StealthyFetcher
fetcher = StealthyFetcher()
page = fetcher.fetch("https://blocked-site.com")
print(page.get_all_text())
# Or target specific content:
articles = page.css("article")
```

### 3. Playwright (fallback for complex JS)
```bash
playwright screenshot --url "https://example.com" /tmp/output.png
```

### 4. Microlink API (metadata + OG images, free tier)
```bash
curl "https://api.microlink.io?url=https://example.com&screenshot=true" | jq .
```

### Tool Selection:
- **Design publications** (It's Nice That, Creative Boom, etc) → Pinchtab
- **Sites that block bots** (Dezeen, Brand New) → Scrapling StealthFetcher
- **Quick metadata/image grab** → Microlink
- **NEVER** use bare `web_fetch` as primary scraper — it gets blocked by everything

## Signal Format

Post each signal as a **separate message** to #radar (channel `1467975831958716466`):

```
[screenshot of the ACTUAL WORK, not the article]

**[Title]** — what's happening in one line
🔗 [Primary source URL — the work itself, not the article about it]

📊 [🟢 Strong | 🟡 Emerging | 🔴 First sighting]
Why: [2 sentences building the cultural case — which independent layers exist]

📎 Evidence (each must be INDEPENDENT):
  1. [Source type] [Name] — [what they said/showed] — [link]
  2. [Source type] [Name] — [what they said/showed] — [link]

🏷️ [tags]
```

Source types: 📰 Press · 🏛️ Institutional · 🏢 Brand · 🏆 Award · 🔄 CE Internal · ⏱️ Persistence

## Cultural Case Confidence

| Strength | Criteria |
|----------|----------|
| 🟢 **Strong** | 3+ truly independent evidence layers |
| 🟡 **Emerging** | 2 independent layers, or 1 strong primary source + CE internal observation |
| 🔴 **First sighting** | 1 source, no corroboration yet |

### What counts as independent:
- ✅ Article A + Studio B doing same thing independently
- ✅ Design press + government policy + brand implementation
- ✅ Award winner + unrelated studio adopting same approach
- ❌ Article A + Article B citing Article A
- ❌ Same PDF cited 3 times for different observations
- ❌ Same trend report split into multiple "signals"

### Reference case: Federal Design Mandate (how we did it right)
1. 🏛️ Primary source: Executive Order (policy, not article)
2. 🏢 Live implementations: visited ndstudio.gov, trumprx.gov, realfood.gov ourselves
3. 🔄 CE analysis: built strategic thesis from our own observation
4. 📰 Press coverage: referenced independently
→ 4 truly independent layers = 🟢 Strong cultural case

## Before Any Project Research
Every agent checks BEFORE fresh research:
1. `curiousendeavor.com/taste/` — existing library
2. `/strategic-intelligence/signals/` — recent signals
3. `/strategic-intelligence/patterns/` — documented patterns

## Notion Integration

**Trend Intelligence DB:** `30e330c2-8646-810b-a638-c4b782320804`
**Inspiration Library:** `2ff330c2-8646-81f0-bbd9-ec474393d7a5`
**API key:** `/home/clawd/secrets/notion/api_key`

## Crons

| Name | Schedule | What |
|------|----------|------|
| `julia-trend-radar` | Daily 9am Lisbon | Discover + investigate signals |
| `radar-reaction-processor` | Every 15min | Check 👍 reactions → Notion |

## Taste Board
**Live:** https://curiousendeavor.com/taste/#radar
Card shows: image + title + strength + source pills.
Click for: full cultural case reasoning + evidence chain with quotes.