Domain Research Pack

Serves: commit to building in an industry, talk credibly with domain experts, scope a product for a regulated field, brief a team entering unfamiliar territory.

Dimensions (priority order — prune to the decision):

1. Industry structure & value chain — how value flows, who captures margin where
2. Key players & gatekeepers — incumbents, platforms, whose APIs/standards/marketplaces you build with or against
3. Rules of the game — laws, licenses, de-facto standards, what compliance costs a new entrant
4. Language & mental models — the vocabulary and implicit workflows practitioners think in; build the glossary — it's why domain research exists
5. Technology adoption — the current technical baseline and where the industry sits on the adoption curve

Craft (the non-obvious): annual-report industry sections are free structured teardowns; conference keynotes reveal who actually matters; go to regulator sites directly for any load-bearing claim — and read enforcement actions to learn what's actually punished versus merely written; job postings name the real tools and skills; pending regulatory changes matter as much as current text.

Freshness: structure ≤ 3 yr · player landscape ≤ 18 mo · regulatory status: verify current on every load-bearing claim, whatever its date · tech adoption ≤ 18 mo, AI-adoption claims ≤ 6 mo.

Two-source classes: regulatory and compliance assertions; quantitative industry figures a recommendation rests on; claims about a gatekeeper's policy.

Feeds (bmm): brief (context, feasibility) · PRD (constraints, domain vocabulary) · architecture (integration landscape, compliance requirements).