Sandbox quickstart

The sandbox uses staging data and credentials. Study design, analysis, and report workflows use the staging services. Participant links and the public feedback page are disabled: opening one shows a sandbox message, and the interview API rejects participant entry. Use Test with AI to preview an interview.

Surface	Sandbox URL
Dashboard	sandbox.userintuition.ai
Public API	`https://staging.userintuition.ai`
MCP	`https://mcp.sandbox.userintuition.ai/mcp`

Create a staging API key in the sandbox dashboard under Manage Account → API Keys. A production key does not authenticate against staging. For a local MCP client, set BACKEND_URL=https://staging.userintuition.ai, APP_URL=https://sandbox.userintuition.ai, and USERINTUITION_API_KEY to the staging key. For hosted MCP clients, connect to the sandbox MCP URL above and complete its OAuth flow.

Design and test a study

Create a chat study with synthetic respondents. Send the research brief through Customize Plan, answer any returned questions, and review the saved plan. Wait for provisioning_status to become provisioned.

export UI_API_KEY='ui_sk_...'
export UI_API_BASE='https://staging.userintuition.ai'

curl -fsS "$UI_API_BASE/api/public/v1/studies/" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $UI_API_KEY" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: $(uuidgen)" \
  -d '{"name":"Sandbox concept feedback","study_type":"in-depth-interview","recruiting_method":"synthetic_respondents","interview_format":"chat"}'

export UI_STUDY_ID='<id from create response>'
curl -fsS "$UI_API_BASE/api/public/v1/studies/$UI_STUDY_ID/customize-plan" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $UI_API_KEY" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: $(uuidgen)" \
  -d '{"message":"Interview early-stage founders about how they evaluate customer research tools and what evidence earns their trust."}'

curl -fsS "$UI_API_BASE/api/public/v1/studies/$UI_STUDY_ID" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $UI_API_KEY"

In the dashboard, open Test Conversation → Test with AI. This runs one test interview and lets you watch the AI respondent. Test calls are excluded from report sample counts. The public feedback link and Test it yourself are unavailable in the sandbox. AI tests are currently unavailable for studies with a concept link.

Launch three synthetic responses

In Ready to Launch, choose Launch Synthetic Study. The sandbox starts a batch of three AI respondent interviews automatically. This is the minimum report sample; the three-response sandbox batch does not debit credits. Wait for all three to finish and pass interview quality checks. If any response is unusable, launch another synthetic batch from the study dashboard. The synthetic launch control and Test with AI are dashboard workflows; they are not operations in the stable public API or MCP tool catalog. API and MCP clients can use the staging study design and reporting endpoints before and after those dashboard steps.

Generate and retrieve the report

Once three usable synthetic responses are complete, open Dashboard → Reports → Generate Report, or use the public API (and its generate_report MCP equivalent):

curl -fsS -X POST "$UI_API_BASE/api/public/v1/studies/$UI_STUDY_ID/report" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $UI_API_KEY" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: $(uuidgen)"

export UI_JOB_ID='<job_id from response>'
curl -fsS "$UI_API_BASE/api/public/v1/studies/$UI_STUDY_ID/report/jobs/$UI_JOB_ID" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $UI_API_KEY"

curl -fsS "$UI_API_BASE/api/public/v1/studies/$UI_STUDY_ID/report?view=overview" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $UI_API_KEY"

With fewer than three usable synthetic responses, the sandbox rejects report generation with insufficient_synthetic_responses. Fetch view=full or a named section for detailed evidence. Keep the same idempotency key when retrying an uncertain report request. See the API introduction for job states and report views.

Overview

Runnable examples

Studies

Interviews

Reference and usage

Participants

Reports

Targeting

Panels

Feasibility

Study Management

Webhooks

Design and test a study

Launch three synthetic responses

Generate and retrieve the report

​Design and test a study

​Launch three synthetic responses

​Generate and retrieve the report

Design and test a study

Launch three synthetic responses

Generate and retrieve the report