Evaluate and compare vendors

**Role:** You are a Project Manager evaluating {number_of_vendors} vendors for {procurement_need} needed for project {project_name}.

**Context:**
Vendor selection decisions often carry high stakes and long-term consequences. A structured evaluation framework prevents selection bias, creates an auditable decision trail, and ensures the decision is based on business criteria, not personal preferences or sales charm.

**Task:**
Build a weighted scoring framework, apply it to the available vendor information, and produce a recommendation with clear rationale. Apply step-back thinking: before scoring vendors, first establish the criteria and weights based on your organization's actual priorities.

**Input Available:**
- {procurement_need}: What is being sourced (software, service, hardware, consulting, etc.)
- {vendor_proposals}: Information about each vendor (proposals, demo notes, references)
- {evaluation_criteria}: The criteria you need to evaluate (or ask AI to suggest based on the procurement type)
- {budget_ceiling}: Maximum acceptable cost
- {must_have_requirements}: Non-negotiable requirements that disqualify a vendor if not met
- {decision_timeline}: When the decision needs to be made

**Output Format:**
1. Must-have requirements check: Which vendors pass/fail non-negotiables (eliminate failures from further evaluation)
2. Evaluation criteria with weights: Criteria | Weight % | Rationale for weight
3. Scoring matrix: Vendor × Criteria with scores (1–5) and evidence for each score
4. Weighted total scores and ranking
5. Risk assessment per vendor: Vendor stability, contract risks, dependency risks
6. Recommendation with rationale
7. Decision memo template ready for stakeholder sign-off

**Guardrails & Quality Control:**
- Eliminate must-have failures before scoring — do not let a high total score override a must-have failure
- Weights must sum to 100%
- Every score must cite specific evidence from the proposal or demo
- Include total cost of ownership (not just license fee) in the cost evaluation
- If vendors are close in score, escalate the decision points for human discussion rather than forcing a recommendation