Changelog
Built in public
Every step from the first plan to today. Nine phases, each tested live before the next. Times are India time (IST).
Thursday, 15 October 2026
- Improvement
Forgot your password? Reset it, plus designed sign-in emails
The login page now has "Forgot your password?". Riposte emails a reset link, and the link opens a page to choose a new password, then takes you straight to your feed. Sign-up, login link, password reset and change-of-email emails now have a proper Riposte design: logo, a clear button, what happens next, and a note on what to do if you didn't ask for it.
- Launch
Riposte has its own address: useriposte.com
Riposte now lives at useriposte.com. Links in emails, Slack messages, the blog, the sitemap and invites all point to the new address. The old riposte-eta.vercel.app address still works.
Monday, 12 October 2026
- Improvement
News and recognition tracker
Every competitor now has a News source that searches GDELT, a free, open news database covering thousands of news sites, including tech and business press and press release wires. Articles about the same story become one card, labelled Launch, Partnership, Recognition (Gartner, Forrester, awards), Funding, Leadership change, Trouble or Pricing. News about something else with the same name is marked as noise. As always, each card says why it matters for you and what to do, and recognition cards give sales a ready reply.
- Improvement
Knowledge base: judged against your own content
Upload your one-pagers, positioning docs, case studies and past posts (PDF or Word, up to 10 MB, 10 files in the beta). After each upload a check card shows the pages and words read, a short summary, the first lines and any warning, so you can see it worked. Scanned PDFs are read by Google's AI. Every signal, action kit, brief, comparison and AI search answer now uses your files, and briefs build on topics you've already covered instead of repeating them.
Wednesday, 7 October 2026
- Improvement
Landing page matches the product
Who Riposte is for, a fourth problem (slow, with no sense of how much a change matters), "Tell it about your product" as the first step, impact levels, and connected moves.
Tuesday, 6 October 2026
- Improvement
Beta users see what's included
New beta users get a welcome card with their allowance, then a slim strip on every page showing competitors and tracked prompts used. Approving someone gives a one-click copy of the invite message.
- Milestone
Free, invite-only beta
Riposte opens as a free beta. People join the waitlist and are approved in small groups, with limits of 5 competitors and 10 tracked prompts each. A Give feedback form asks what you'd miss most and what it's worth to you, so pricing comes from real users.
Monday, 5 October 2026
- Improvement
Landing page catches up
The home page now lists content briefs and "why they're winning", says Riposte shows who AI recommends to your buyers and why, and links to the blog and changelog.
- Improvement
"Why are they winning?" gives real reasons
It now reads the AI answer itself: what each competitor is picked for, whether your product says the same, and what to publish to compete. Recent moves show only when there are some. Briefs use these reasons, and AI calls wait and retry through busy minutes instead of failing.
- Fix
AI visibility answers save again
Answers were asked but not saved because of a missing database column, and the error was hidden. Save errors now show plainly, and the first real run is in: Crayon and Klue named in 4 of 5 answers, Riposte in none yet.
- Fix
Blog, changelog and about in the app menu
The app's side menu now links to the blog, this changelog and the founder page, and the site header shows them on phones too.
- Improvement
Four product posts on the blog
A tour of every feature, plus deep dives on action kits, AI visibility and living comparison pages.
- Launch
Content briefs and "why are they winning"
One click turns a trend, or an AI answer where competitors are named and you aren't, into a ready-to-write brief: keyword, intent, angle, quick answer, outline and FAQs. AI visibility gaps now show the named competitors' recent moves.
- Improvement
Blog, changelog and founder page
A blog with SEO and AEO built in (quick answer box, FAQs, article and FAQ schema), this changelog, an about page, plus sitemap, robots and llms.txt.
- Improvement
Actions as a clear to-do list
Tabs for Today, This week, Later and Done, a list on the left and the full action with its draft on the right.
- Improvement
Redesign for speed and scale
Sidebar navigation, a list-and-detail feed with tabs, searchable and paged tables for 50+ competitors, side-by-side layouts, and password login.
- Fix
AI visibility works on a free AI key
When web search isn't available, answers fall back to the model's own knowledge, clearly labelled, with retries when Google is busy.
- LaunchPhase 9
Living comparison pages
Fair 'you vs them' pages written from facts on the competitor's site, flagged out of date when they change pricing or product, updated in one click.
- LaunchPhase 8
AI visibility
Tracked buyer questions are asked in Gemini. See which products get named, in what order, which sites the answers rely on, and where competitors are named and you aren't.
- LaunchPhase 7
Prompt Studio
Turns keywords into commercial-intent buyer prompts in Shield and Spear topics, with no brand names, checked by rules, and exported as CSV for Profound.
- Improvement
Clear history and Start fresh
Reset a competitor's signals, or everything, without losing the pages being watched.
- LaunchPhase 6c
Alerts when a page changes search intent
Sitemap dates show when an old page is rewritten. Riposte compares its title and headings before and after, and flags shifts like a how-to guide becoming a 'best tools' comparison.
- Fix
Smarter page discovery
A page that redirects to the homepage is never accepted as pricing or blog. Answer pages built for AI search are recognised, and large sitemaps are read in full.
Sunday, 4 October 2026
- LaunchPhase 6b
Connected moves and trend alerts
Related changes by one competitor are joined into one story. Topics that several competitors start writing about are flagged as trends.
- Fix
Morning check never skips a competitor
A competitor checked late the day before was skipped by the morning run. Daily pages are now due after 12 hours instead of 20.
- Milestone
Daily checks, plus Check now
Decided against real-time checking. Competitors rarely change by the hour; daily checks catch what matters, keep costs low and are polite to their websites.
- LaunchPhase 6a
Content intelligence
How often each competitor publishes, what kinds of pages they have, and the topics they keep writing about, grouped by AI.
- Improvement
Actions board and shipped responses
Every action from every kit in one place. Finishing a kit marks its signal reviewed, and the weekly digest lists the responses your team shipped.
Saturday, 3 October 2026
- Improvement
What makes you different
A new product profile field, so talk tracks and battlecards lead with your real strengths instead of generic lines.
- Fix
AI that copes with busy servers
When Google's AI is overloaded, Riposte retries and falls back to a lighter model, and shows the real reason if it still fails.
- LaunchPhase 5
Action kits
For each signal: what to create, who owns it, where to share it and how urgent it is, with a first draft ready to copy.
- Milestone
First live signal and email alert
The demo competitor raised its price from $49 to $59. Riposte caught it, explained it as high impact and emailed the alert.
- Improvement
A demo competitor for testing
A fictional company, Acme Insights, whose pricing, blog and changelog change every 10 minutes, so every feature can be tested end to end.
- LaunchPhase 4
AI signals, alerts and the weekly digest
Each real change is explained against your product: what changed, why it matters, what to do and how important it is. High-impact changes are emailed, and a digest arrives every Monday.
- LaunchPhase 3
The fetcher
Reads each page every morning, keeps only the main content, compares it with the last check and ignores noise like dates, banners and menus. Respects each site's robots.txt.
- LaunchPhase 2
Your product and competitors
Describe your product and buyers once. Add a competitor by its website, and Riposte finds its pricing page, blog, feed, release notes and sitemap.
- LaunchPhase 1
Riposte goes live
Login, a secure database, and a landing page with a waitlist, live on the web.
Friday, 2 October 2026
- Milestone
The plan
Wrote down the problem from my own PMM work, designed the user flow and screens, and split the build into nine phases, each tested live before the next.