User Pain Research Skill

Deep, source-backed user-pain research for digital products, SaaS tools, apps, marketplaces, plugins, and online services.

This Codex skill helps an agent find recent complaints, unmet needs, churn signals, negative reviews, workarounds, and product opportunities from public sources such as Reddit, Trustpilot, G2, Capterra, Product Hunt, app stores, public forums, and support communities.

It is built for founders, product teams, researchers, marketers, and builders who want to understand what users are struggling with before deciding what to build next.

What It Does

• Finds recent user complaints and negative feedback from public sources.
• Prioritizes first-person evidence over SEO summaries or vendor pages.
• Clusters complaints into clear pain points.
• Separates product bugs, pricing issues, onboarding friction, missing features, support problems, performance, integrations, migration/export issues, and trust concerns.
• Turns complaints into plain-language product opportunities and MVP ideas.
• Starts Reddit research from product-specific communities such as r/framer, r/Notion, r/webflow, and adjacent subreddits when relevant.
• Reports source limitations instead of inventing evidence when platforms block access or have low signal.

Example Prompts

Use $user-pain-research to analyze the latest pain points for Framer from Reddit and Trustpilot.

Use $user-pain-research to find the strongest complaints about Notion over the last six months. Include Reddit, Product Hunt, G2, and public forums.

Use $user-pain-research to research churn reasons for Webflow users and suggest product opportunities for a competing tool.

Repository Structure

user-pain-research-skill/
├── user-pain-research/
│   ├── SKILL.md
│   ├── agents/
│   │   └── openai.yaml
│   └── references/
│       ├── report-template.md
│       └── source-playbook.md
├── install.sh
├── README.md
├── CONTRIBUTING.md
├── SECURITY.md
└── LICENSE

Installation

Option 1: Install With the Script

Clone the repository and run:

./install.sh

The script installs the skill into:

${CODEX_HOME:-$HOME/.codex}/skills/user-pain-research

Option 2: Manual Install

git clone https://github.com/Nicolabaldo/user-pain-research-skill.git
mkdir -p "${CODEX_HOME:-$HOME/.codex}/skills"
cp -R user-pain-research-skill/user-pain-research "${CODEX_HOME:-$HOME/.codex}/skills/"

Restart Codex or start a new session so the skill is discovered.

Updating

cd user-pain-research-skill
git pull
./install.sh

How To Use

After installation, ask Codex to use the skill:

Use $user-pain-research to analyze recent pain points for [product] from [sources].

If you do not specify sources, the skill asks which platforms to include. If you do specify them, it proceeds directly.

Recommended source examples:

• Reddit
• Trustpilot
• G2
• Capterra
• Product Hunt
• App Store
• Google Play
• X/Twitter public posts
• public support forums
• GitHub issues
• marketplace or plugin reviews

Reddit Research Behavior

For Reddit, the skill starts from the official or closest dedicated subreddit before broad search:

• Framer -> r/framer
• Notion -> r/Notion
• Webflow -> r/webflow
• Linear -> r/Linear

It then expands to adjacent communities where users compare tools, discuss workarounds, or mention switching intent.

If Reddit blocks anonymous access, the skill uses legitimate fallback paths such as normal web search, old Reddit pages, RSS/search pages when available, indexed snippets, or official Reddit API/OAuth if credentials are already available. It marks coverage as partial when evidence cannot be verified.

Output Format

The report is designed for product discovery. It normally includes:

1. Platform-by-platform findings.
2. The five most impactful pain points.
3. Who suffers most.
4. Whether the problem looks like a business opportunity.
5. Concrete MVP ideas.
6. A simple product opportunity map.
7. Validation questions to ask real users.

Each major claim should include dates, source links, and short quotes or faithful paraphrases.

Evidence Standards

The skill prefers:

• primary sources
• recent complaints
• first-person user feedback
• public and legitimately accessible pages
• source-backed claims

The skill avoids:

• private or leaked content
• unsupported claims
• fake exact quotes
• over-relying on SEO listicles
• treating blocked or inaccessible pages as verified evidence

Requirements

• Codex with local skills support.
• Internet access for live research.
• Optional platform credentials for sources that require authenticated APIs, such as Reddit OAuth.

No package installation is required for the skill itself.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.