Comparison and Alternative Pages

Markdown delivery contract

Read markdown-delivery-contract.md for every task. Write a substantive .md document for every material work step and register its direct destination in the work index.md. For public-site work, apply the owner-required Markdown discovery profile across the full eligible inventory; preserve native standards and immutable evidence formats.

Lane outputs: comparison-research.md; comparison-decisions.md (combine small related steps with stable section links). Keep comparison Markdown and HTML claims identical, source-dated, attributable and fair. Map comparison intent to a substantive owner; do not copy competitors or invent relative product capabilities.

Purpose

Create useful comparison-page plans and reviewable drafts for a reader making a real choice. The page should make its evidence, scope, and trade-offs clear; it is not a vehicle for unverified claims or competitor disparagement.

Read references/comparison-evidence-protocol.md before drafting factual comparisons.

Input gate

Require the reader/use case, entities/products compared, locale, comparison date, company-owned facts, independently verifiable competitor sources, the user’s actual alternatives/criteria, legal/brand constraints, and review owner. Quote or summarize only what the cited source supports and preserve price, availability, plan, market, and feature scope.

If a competitor fact cannot be verified or may have changed, label it unknown, omit it, or ask for an approved source. Never “complete” a table from memory or an AI answer.

Workflow

1. Frame reader value. State who is deciding, what decision they need to make, and why a comparison is useful beyond a brand-versus-brand keyword.
2. Build a fact matrix. Separate company facts, competitor facts, common capabilities, meaningful differences, limitations, and subjective fit. Every material row gets a source and “as of” date/scope.
3. Choose fair structure. Use methodology, use-case guidance, eligibility/constraints, and transparent comparison rows. Include alternatives that may genuinely fit the reader; do not hide disqualifying conditions.
4. Draft with attribution. Write factual copy in neutral language, preserve product/brand names correctly, cite sources where readers need them, and distinguish opinion from verified fact. Do not copy a competitor’s copy, table, screenshots, reviews, or trademarks beyond authorized/legally reviewed use.
5. Review and release plan. Require product, legal/brand, factual, localization, and accessibility review as appropriate. Send site implementation through seo-content and seo-action-plan.

Guardrails

• Do not claim “best,” “cheaper,” “more secure,” “#1,” migration ease, feature parity, or performance superiority without scoped support and approval.
• Never fabricate rankings, review aggregates, customer quotes, pricing, availability, integrations, or competitor weaknesses.
• Do not use SEO demand as permission to create a misleading or thin comparison page.
• Do not imply search ranking, AI citation, referral, or conversion outcomes from publishing the page.

Formal evidence handoff

When this work needs a cross-team, approval-ready plan, package evidence-bound findings as an immutable seo-findings.json bundle using the checked-out suite contract. Let <suite-root> mean ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT} in Claude Code. In Codex, read .seo-suite-runtime.json beside this SKILL.md when present and use its suite_root value; otherwise use the absolute repository checkout. Keep every referenced capture/source below raw/, retain declined claims and limitations, and run python "<suite-root>/scripts/validate_seo_findings.py" validate-findings <bundle>/seo-findings.json --bundle <bundle>. Send only a passing bundle to seo-action-plan; otherwise label the handoff provisional.

Output

Return a source/date-stamped fact matrix, reader-oriented outline, claim/approval ledger, draft options if requested, and implementation/review handoff. Unverified rows are explicit gaps, not recommendations.