Focus Group for agents

Three credentials work, and they differ only in what they can reach.

• fcg_live_ — this app's own key, minted at Dashboard → API keys. Runs panels, reads them, exports them. Cannot pass brain_ids, because that reaches into your private Ounie account.
• ounie_live_— your ounie.com developer key, the fleet MASTER key. Everything above, plus grounding a panel in your Ounie brains. Enable “Use across Ounie apps” on ounie.com first.
• x402 — no account at all. Pay per call in USDC on Base. See below.

Authorization: Bearer fcg_live_…

# or, when your client cannot set headers:
https://focusgroup.ounie.com/api/panels?api_key=fcg_live_…

Every keyed call draws the key owner's shared Ounie credit wallet and is refused with 402 insufficient_credits when the balance is short — an agent can never overdraw.

curl -X POST https://focusgroup.ounie.com/api/panels \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer fcg_live_…" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "artifact": "One tool. Every workflow. Start free…",
    "icp": "Solo consultants who bill hourly",
    "focus": "pricing",
    "panel_size": 6
  }'

{
  "ok": true,
  "panel_id": "…",
  "synthetic": true,
  "notice": "These panelists are simulated…",
  "panel_score": 2.8,
  "dissent": "The freelancer never reaches the form — there is no price on the page.",
  "top_objections": ["No price anywhere", "…"],
  "revisions": ["Put the number on the page", "…"],
  "personas": [
    {
      "id": "p1",
      "label": "Solo consultant, 8 years, bills hourly",
      "archetype": "Budget-conscious skeptic",
      "context": "Evaluating on a Sunday, will not book a call",
      "score": 2,
      "firstReaction": "…",
      "objections": ["…"],
      "wouldAct": false,
      "suggestedRevision": "…",
      "quote": "…",
      "citations": [],
      "synthetic": true
    }
  ],
  "grounded": false,
  "credits_spent": 8
}

Reads of a panel you already paid for are free, forever.

CSV and Markdown exports carry the “simulated, not surveyed” notice inside the file, because an exported table is the thing most likely to be mistaken for research once it leaves this app.

One MCP server at https://focusgroup.ounie.com/api/mcp (Streamable HTTP) and /api/sse (legacy). Works with Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT, the AI SDK, and the Ounie AI Team — which cannot set static headers, so the key rides the URL as ?api_key=.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "focus-group": {
      "url": "https://focusgroup.ounie.com/api/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer fcg_live_…" }
    }
  }
}

For agents with no Ounie account. The first call returns 402 with a price quoted in atomic USDC; retry the same request with an X-Payment header. The price is computed from your payload, never a constant in the route.

# 1. quote
curl -X POST https://focusgroup.ounie.com/api/x402/panel \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"artifact":"…","icp":"Solo consultants","focus":"pricing"}'
→ 402 { "x402Version": 1, "accepts": [{ "scheme": "exact",
        "network": "base", "maxAmountRequired": "…", "payTo": "0x…" }] }

# 2. pay
curl -X POST https://focusgroup.ounie.com/api/x402/panel \
  -H "X-Payment: <base64 signed authorization>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{ … }'

Panels paid over x402 are returned in the response and not stored — there is no account to store them against.

A panel where every panelist scored the artifact 4 or 5 is not a good result. It is a broken panel, and the entire value of this product is the reaction you did not want. So it is checked in code, not left to the prompt:

• At least one panelist must score 3 or lower.
• That panelist must raise at least one concrete objection.
• The disagreement must survive into the summary as a non-empty dissent line, rather than being averaged away.

If the first pass fails, we retry once with a stricter brief. If it fails again the run is refused: 422 thin_panel on the credit rail with a full pool-exact refund, and 402 thin_panel before settlement on x402. You are never billed for a room that agreed with you.

This is also why a genuinely strong piece of copy still comes back with a low scorer. That panelist is the person your copy is not for, explaining why — which is usually the more useful half of the answer.