Quick start
Up and running in 5 steps
- Open Claude and create a new Project called CI Director.
- Paste the instruction text from page 2 of your User Guide into Set project instructions, then save.
- Make sure web search is on.
- Optionally, upload a one-page brief about your own business.
- Start a chat inside the Project: “I'm in [your industry], operating in [your city/region]. Identify my top 5 direct competitors.”
1What you need
- A Claude account at claude.ai, or the Claude desktop app. The Free plan works, but it is limited to 5 Projects. Paid plans (Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise) have no Project limit.
- Web search turned on in Claude (see Step 3). Without it, CI Director cannot research anything.
- Your CI Director for Claude Projects User Guide (the PDF you downloaded). It contains the instruction text you paste into Claude.
- About 5 minutes.
2Setting up CI Director in Claude
Step 1: Create the Project
- Go to claude.ai/projects. Or open Claude and choose Projects in the left sidebar.
- Click + New Project (top right).
- Name it CI Director. Adding a description is optional.
- On a Team or Enterprise plan, choose whether the Project is private or shared with your organisation.
- Create the Project.
Step 2: Add the CI Director instructions
- Open page 2 of your CI Director for Claude Projects User Guide.
- Select everything between the lines
[COPY THE TEXT BELOW THIS LINE]and[COPY THE TEXT ABOVE THIS LINE]. Start at# Role & Purposeand finish at the last bullet under# Tone & Style. Leave out the two marker lines themselves. - In your Project, click Set project instructions (in the Project knowledge panel on the right).
- Paste the text and click Save instructions.
Tip: Some PDF readers add extra line breaks when you copy. That's fine, because Claude reads the headings and numbered rules either way. Do check that the whole block pasted, all the way to the Tone & Style section.
Step 3: Make sure web search is on
CI Director's instructions tell Claude to search the web for every question. Claude can only do that if web search is available to it.
- If you see a “+” button in the bottom-left of the chat box, click it and make sure Web search has a tick next to it.
- If there is no web search option, your version of Claude searches the web automatically whenever it helps. You don't need to do anything.
- On a Team or Enterprise plan, an Owner must first turn web search on for everyone, under Organization settings > Capabilities. If you can't find web search anywhere, ask your Claude administrator.
Step 4 (optional): Tell CI Director about your business
The “Win Position” recommendations in each report are much sharper when Claude knows who you are. Write a one-page brief (a .txt, .docx or .pdf file) covering:
- Your company name and what you sell
- Your current pricing tiers
- Your known strengths and weaknesses
- Your target customer
In the Project, click the + button in the Project knowledge panel and upload the file. Update it whenever your pricing or positioning changes.
3Running your first analysis
Always start your research in a new chat inside the CI Director Project, not in an ordinary chat. Only chats inside the Project follow the CI Director instructions.
1. Discovery mode. Paste this as your first message:
I'm in the [your industry], operating in [your city/region]. Identify my top 5 direct competitors.
CI Director replies with a ranked table: Company Name | Estimated Market Position | Primary Geographic Focus | Website. It then asks which competitor you want analysed in depth.
2. Deep-dive mode. Follow up with:
Run a full Intelligence Report on [Competitor Name]. Their website is [URL].
4Understanding your Intelligence Report
Every deep dive comes back in the same structure, so reports on different competitors are easy to compare:
| Section | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Executive Summary | Two paragraphs on the competitor's core value proposition and main target customer. |
| Pricing & Business Model Matrix | A table: Tier/Plan | Price | Billing Frequency | Key Inclusions | Source. If the competitor doesn't publish prices, it says “Custom quote model” and cites the evidence. |
| Product & Feature SWOT Analysis | SWOT means Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Here it focuses on the competitor's identified strengths and weaknesses, drawing on review sites such as G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, Google Reviews and Reddit. |
| Strategic “Win” Position | Three specific actions your business can take to exploit the competitor's weaknesses. |
| Limitations Audit | Every expected data point it could not verify, each labelled as solvable by (a) a more targeted search, (b) review mining, or (c) primary research such as customer interviews or mystery shopping. |
How to read the results
- Numbered citations such as [1] link to a Sources list at the end. Click through to check any figure before you rely on it.
- “Information not publicly available via public search” means CI Director looked and found no reliable source. This is deliberate: it is instructed never to guess.
- The Limitations Audit is a starting point, not a footnote. It tells you exactly what your next round of research should target.
5The five core prompts
Paste these into a chat in your CI Director Project. Replace everything in square brackets [LIKE THIS] with your own details and delete the brackets.
Market Identification: The Radar Scan
When to use it: You are entering a new niche or area and need to know who the major players are.
I run an [INSERT BUSINESS TYPE] in [INSERT CITY]. Run a market radar scan to identify my top 5 direct competitors. Prioritise sources from the past 12 months. Create a ranked table comparing them by market position, geographic focus, and website.
Feature SWOT Analysis: The “Armour” Crack
When to use it: You want a competitor's product strengths and weaknesses, and advice on how to win where they fall short.
Perform a full Product & Feature SWOT analysis on [INSERT COMPETITOR NAME]. Their website is [INSERT URL]. Search for customer reviews specifically on G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, Reddit, and Google Reviews. Focus heavily on recurring complaints or missing features. Based on the identified weaknesses, suggest 3 specific ways I can position my business to win against them.
Pricing Deep-Dive: The “Wallet” Crack
When to use it: You need to know exactly how a competitor charges. If they only give private custom quotes, CI Director will say so.
Perform a pricing deep dive on [INSERT COMPETITOR NAME]. Their website is [INSERT URL]. Fetch their pricing page directly and search for third-party references to their pricing on review sites and forums. Map out their tiered pricing structure in a table and determine if there is any evidence of dynamic or negotiated pricing. Cite every figure.
Marketing Message Analysis: The “Messaging” Mirror
When to use it: You want to understand a competitor's positioning: who they are trying to reach, and how.
Fetch and read the homepage at [INSERT URL] for [INSERT COMPETITOR NAME]. Based on the live page content, identify: 1. Their primary target audience (who they are speaking to) 2. The top 3 problems they claim to solve for that audience 3. Their stated or implied unique selling proposition 4. The emotional tone and language register they use (e.g. authoritative, friendly, fear-based, aspirational). Then run a separate web search for any third-party commentary or analysis of their brand positioning or marketing strategy. Note any gap between how they present themselves and how customers or critics actually perceive them.
The Limitations & Gaps Report: The “Reality Check”
When to use it: You have gathered a lot of research and need a precise list of what you still don't know before investing in deeper research.
Based on all research conducted in this conversation on [INSERT COMPETITOR NAME], produce a formal Limitations Report. For each of the following KPI categories, state whether the data was (a) publicly verified with a source, (b) partially available but unconfirmed, or (c) not publicly available: - Annual revenue or GMV - Funding rounds and investors - Employee headcount and key hires - Full technology stack - Exact pricing (all tiers) - Customer churn or retention rates - Paid advertising spend and channels - Product roadmap or upcoming features For every gap in category (b) or (c), recommend the most practical next-step research method: targeted search, review mining, mystery shopping, LinkedIn analysis, or customer interviews.
Run this in the same chat as your earlier research on that competitor. A new chat can't see the earlier research. (KPI = key performance indicator; GMV = gross merchandise value.)
6A recommended research routine
- Radar Scan: find your top 5 competitors.
- Intelligence Report: run a deep dive on the one that matters most.
- Messaging Mirror and Wallet Crack: go deeper on their positioning and pricing.
- Armour Crack: collect customer complaints and your three “win” moves.
- Reality Check: list what you still don't know, in the same chat.
- Act on the findings, then re-run the Radar Scan every quarter or whenever the market shifts.
Tip: Keep one chat per competitor, and give each chat a clear name. Each chat holds all the research on its competitor, so the Reality Check can use it.
7What CI Director can't do
| Limitation | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| No automatic or scheduled scans | Claude can't re-run your research by itself on a schedule. Re-run a prompt whenever you need fresh data. |
| No specialist paid databases | It can't access paywalled sources such as Crunchbase Pro, SimilarWeb Premium, SEMrush or LinkedIn Sales Navigator. |
| No log-in-only content | Pricing or features that you need an account to see are invisible to it. These should appear in the Limitations Audit. |
| Research happens live | Claude works through each request while you wait. Nothing runs in the background. |
| Memory is per chat | Each chat only knows its own research. Run follow-ups, especially the Gaps Report, in the same chat. |
8Troubleshooting
| Problem | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| The answer has no sources, or reads like general knowledge. | Web search is off, or you are in an ordinary chat outside the Project. | Check you're inside the CI Director Project and that web search is on (Step 3). Then reply: “Search the web and cite a source for every fact.” |
| The report doesn't follow the CI Director format. | The instructions weren't saved, or only part of the text was pasted. | Open the Project, click the project instructions, and check the text runs from # Role & Purpose to # Tone & Style. Paste it again if anything is missing, save, and start a new chat. |
| The competitors listed are the wrong ones. | Your business description or location was too broad. | Be specific, e.g. “commercial HVAC maintenance for offices in Greater Manchester”, not “HVAC”. You can also name the competitors you already know. |
| Lots of “Information not publicly available via public search”. | This is working as designed. CI Director is not allowed to guess. | Use the Limitations Audit to decide what's worth researching further, whether through review mining, customer interviews or mystery shopping. |
| Pricing shows “Custom quote model”. | The competitor doesn't publish prices. | This is useful intelligence in itself. To get real numbers you need primary research, for example requesting a quote as a genuine prospect. |
| The Gaps Report says there is no earlier research. | It was run in a new chat. | Go back to the chat that holds your research on that competitor and run the Reality Check prompt there. |
| A long report stops part-way. | Claude hit its reply length limit. | Reply “Continue” and it picks up where it left off. |
| A cited link is broken or doesn't support the claim. | Web pages change, and AI can occasionally mis-attribute a source. | Always click through before you rely on a figure. Ask: “Re-verify [claim] and give me the exact source.” |
| “You've reached your Project limit.” | Free accounts can have up to 5 Projects. | Delete or archive an unused Project, or upgrade your Claude plan. |
9Frequently asked questions
Is CI Director free?
Yes. CI Director is free to download and use. You need your own Claude account, and the Free plan works.
Do I need to paste the instructions every time?
No. They are saved in the Project. Every new chat you start inside the CI Director Project uses them automatically.
Can I edit the instructions?
You can, for example to add your industry's own review sites. Keep the Operating Constraints and the Limitations Audit section intact, because they stop the AI from guessing.
Can my team use it?
On a Claude Team or Enterprise plan you can share the Project with colleagues. Each person on another plan should set up their own Project. CI Director is licensed for single-user use, so please don't redistribute the instruction text.
Is my business information private?
Anything you upload or type is handled by Anthropic under your Claude account's terms and privacy settings. ChrisalysWorks never sees your chats or files. Review your Claude privacy settings before uploading anything confidential.
How accurate is it?
CI Director is built to cite everything and flag what it can't verify, which removes most invented answers. It is still an AI working from public web sources, so check key figures via the cited links before acting on them.
I also use Gemini. Is there a version for that?
Yes. CI Director for Google Gemini works the same way, as a Gem. See its separate help page.
10Getting more help
Still stuck?
If this page hasn't solved your problem, call ChrisalysWorks on +44 (0)330 027 1369 or get in touch through the contact page at chrisalys.works. It helps to tell us which step you reached and to include a screenshot of what you're seeing.
Missing your download? Check your spam or junk folder first. If it's still missing, contact us and we'll send the guide to you directly.
Terms in brief. CI Director, including its system instructions, prompts and templates, is the intellectual property of ChrisalysWorks. It is licensed for single-user, non-exclusive use in your own business or personal work, and may not be shared, repackaged or resold. CI Director runs on third-party AI platforms (Claude). ChrisalysWorks is not responsible for those platforms' availability or for the accuracy of AI-generated output. Business decisions based on AI output are at your own risk.