synthpanel is an open-source command-line tool designed to run synthetic focus groups using large language models (LLMs). It enables users to simulate panel discussions by configuring AI personas and research instruments in plain YAML, allowing for rapid feedback and research iteration without the need to recruit human participants. The tool is targeted at startup product managers, UX researchers, and AI engineers who require quick insights, pre-filtering of research questions, or validation of prompts and routing decisions within agent pipelines.
The platform supports integration with various LLMs, including Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok, and local models. It operates with zero configuration inside hosts such as Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, and other environments that support the Model Context Protocol (MCP), leveraging the host's own model for each panelist. Alternatively, users can supply their own API keys to enable reproducibility, ensemble runs, or larger panels. synthpanel can be invoked from the terminal, incorporated into pipelines, or called as a tool by AI agents over MCP. Results from synthetic panels are returned as structured JSON via CLI or MCP tool calls, and shareable Markdown reports can be generated, each clearly marked as synthetic data to avoid confusion with real user research.
The tool provides a suite of 12 commands for running prompts and panels, managing persona and instrument packs, calibrating persona packs against the SynthBench baseline, analyzing saved results, summarizing costs, and handling credential management. It is pip-installable from PyPI and offers drop-in configuration for integration with editors and coding assistants such as Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, and Zed. synthpanel is MIT-licensed, and its source code is available on GitHub. It does not include a hosted web UI, managed SaaS tier, or enterprise compliance features by design, emphasizing a CLI-first, local-first, and bring-your-own-key approach.
synthpanel is positioned as a tool for conducting synthetic focus group research, enabling rapid, automated feedback from AI-generated personas for product, UX, and AI development workflows.
In the Autonomous agents & workflows space, synthpanel takes a focused approach. It focuses on running synthetic focus groups for product research using large language models without recruiting real participants. synthpanel is an open-source project aimed at product managers. The project is open source (MIT). It runs on the command line and embeddable surfaces.
DataViking builds and maintains synthpanel, and the product first shipped in 2026. The project is developed in the open on GitHub with 600 commits in the last 90 days. Among its 5 catalogued features are synthetic focus groups, LLM integration, and MCP server. It exposes integrations via an MCP server. synthpanel is currently in beta.
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