Cookiy

AI-powered user research through natural language. Installs the Cookiy MCP server and orchestrates tool workflows for study creation, AI interviews, discussion guide editing, participant recruitment, report generation, and optional quantitative questionnaires.

Cookiy gives your AI agent user-research capabilities. It designs interview guides, conducts AI-moderated interviews with real or simulated participants, and generates insight reports — all through natural language.

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Part 1 — Setup

Mandatory MCP preflight

Before doing anything else, ALWAYS verify that Cookiy MCP is available for the current client.

Run this preflight on every Cookiy skill use:

1. Try calling cookiy_introduce.
2. If it succeeds, treat MCP as healthy and continue to Part 2.
3. If it fails because the tool is missing, the server is unreachable, authentication is broken, or the user asked for a different target environment, run the installer for the current client to repair or replace the MCP config.
4. After installation, call cookiy_introduce again. Only continue when it succeeds.

Do NOT ask the user whether to install MCP when the skill is being used. The skill should self-heal by default.

Setup-first conversation policy

• If the user is trying to install, connect, repair, or verify Cookiy, complete setup first. Do NOT ask research-goal, participant, or report-format questions before MCP is healthy.
• On /cookiy entry, if MCP health is unknown, run the preflight first. Only move into business discovery after setup succeeds or when the user explicitly asks what Cookiy can do.
• During setup, present only one next action at a time. For headless OAuth clients, surface the installer's single action block instead of inventing multiple options unless the installer actually fails.
• When cookiy_introduce is used only as a health check, NEVER dump the raw JSON payload to the user. Summarize the outcome in one sentence, such as: Cookiy MCP is installed and verified successfully.

Healthy MCP should be left alone. Reinstall only when one of these is true:

• cookiy_* tools are unavailable
• MCP connection/authentication appears broken
• The MCP entry looks stale or was created under a legacy server name
• The user explicitly asks for a non-default environment such as dev, dev2, preview, staging, or test

When repair/install is expected

• User mentions Cookiy, user research, voice interviews, or participant recruitment
• Any cookiy_* tool call fails with a connection or "tool not found" error
• User explicitly asks to set up or connect Cookiy
• User asks what Cookiy can do

Install the MCP server

Identify which AI client you are running in (Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Cline, OpenClaw, Manus, etc.) and install ONLY for that client. Do not install for all clients at once.

Unless the user explicitly requests a different environment, install the production MCP server. Production is the default and points to https://s-api.cookiy.ai.

If the user explicitly asks for another environment, include that environment alias in the installer command. Re-running the installer is the approved repair/override path: it replaces the current Cookiy MCP entry for that client with the requested target.

Pick the matching command:

You are running in	Install command
Codex	npx cookiy-mcp --client codex -y
Claude Code	npx cookiy-mcp --client claudeCode -y
Cursor	npx cookiy-mcp --client cursor -y
Cline	npx cookiy-mcp --client cline -y
GitHub Copilot / VS Code	npx cookiy-mcp --client vscode -y
Windsurf	npx cookiy-mcp --client windsurf -y
OpenClaw	npx cookiy-mcp --client openclaw -y
Manus / headless sandbox	npx cookiy-mcp --client manus -y
Other / unknown	npx cookiy-mcp -y (auto-detects production)

Examples for non-default environments:

• Codex dev2: npx cookiy-mcp dev2 --client codex -y
• Claude Code preview: npx cookiy-mcp preview --client claudeCode -y
• Cursor dev: npx cookiy-mcp dev --client cursor -y

If your agent is not in the table above but supports MCP over HTTP, you can manually configure the MCP server URL: https://s-api.cookiy.ai/mcp with OAuth authentication. See the MCP server's OAuth discovery at https://s-api.cookiy.ai/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server.

For headless sandbox environments such as Manus, use npx cookiy-mcp --client manus -y. The installer writes a resumable OAuth helper bundle under ~/.mcp/<server>/.

The installer will open the authorization page when possible and print one explicit next step. If approval does not resume setup automatically, paste the final callback URL or just the authorization code back into the terminal.

Verify the connection

After installation, call cookiy_introduce to confirm the MCP server is connected and authenticated.

If the user's intent was only setup/connect/install/repair, stop after a single success confirmation sentence. Do NOT automatically switch into a research intake questionnaire after verification succeeds.

If authentication fails:

• Re-run the install command for the same target environment. This is the preferred repair path and may overwrite a stale or broken config.
• The OAuth token may have expired. The installer handles re-authentication.

Orient the user only when asked

Present Cookiy's six capability modules (qualitative and quantitative are parallel — same agent, complementary methods; quantitative is not a prerequisite or downstream step for qualitative studies):

1. Study Creation — Describe a research goal and get an AI-generated discussion guide.
2. AI Interview — Simulate interviews with AI personas for quick insights.
3. Discussion Guide — Review and edit the interview script before going live.
4. Recruitment — Recruit real participants for AI-moderated interviews.
5. Report & Insights — Generate analysis reports and shareable links.
6. Quantitative survey — When Cookiy has this capability enabled for your workspace, create structured questionnaires, inspect/share respondent links and question layout, refine them with safe patches, and analyze responses. The default workflow is create or list -> detail -> patch when needed -> report after responses arrive. Parallel to qualitative studies; Cookiy does not expose third-party admin consoles or non-Cookiy product names.

Present these in plain language. Do not expose raw tool names to the user.

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Part 2 — Workflow Orchestration

Cookiy is a workflow-aware MCP server, not a raw REST passthrough. Every operation must go through the official cookiy_* MCP tools. Follow the tool contract and workflow state machines in the reference files.

Intent Router

User wants to...	Workflow	Reference file
Create a new study or research project	Study Creation	study-creation.md
Run simulated or AI-to-AI interviews	AI Interview	ai-interview.md
View or edit the discussion guide	Guide Editing	guide-editing.md
Recruit real participants	Recruitment	recruitment.md
Generate, check, or share a report	Report & Insights	report-insights.md
Author or analyze quantitative questionnaires (when server integration is configured)	Quantitative survey	— (see cookiy_help topic quantitative)
Natural-language study progress (“how is recruitment?”, “is the report ready?”)	Prefer: cookiy_activity_get	tool-contract.md
Add cash credit (USD cents) before paid actions	Direct: cookiy_billing_cash_checkout	tool-contract.md
Check account balance	Direct: cookiy_balance_get	—
List existing studies	Direct: cookiy_study_list	—
Learn what Cookiy can do	Direct: cookiy_introduce	—
Get workflow help on a topic	Direct: cookiy_help (overview, study, ai_interview, guide, recruitment, report, billing, quantitative; common aliases accepted)	—

When the user's intent spans multiple workflows (e.g., "create a study and run interviews"), execute them sequentially in the order listed above.

Universal Rules

See tool-contract.md for the complete specification.

Response handling:

• ALWAYS read structuredContent first. Fall back to content[0].text only when structuredContent is absent.
• ALWAYS check next_recommended_tools in each response. Prefer the server's recommendation over your own judgment.
• ALWAYS obey status_message — it contains server-side behavioral directives, not just informational text.
• When presentation_hint is present, format output accordingly.
• For user-facing progress questions, prefer cookiy_activity_get first; use atomic tools only for drill-down.
• For quantitative questionnaires, default to this chain unless the server says otherwise: cookiy_quant_survey_create or cookiy_quant_survey_list -> cookiy_quant_survey_detail -> cookiy_quant_survey_patch when edits are needed -> cookiy_quant_survey_report after responses exist. Use cookiy_quant_survey_results only when raw row exports are explicitly needed.
• For recruitment truth, prefer evidence in this order: cookiy_interview_list > cookiy_recruit_status > the latest cookiy_recruit_create response > cookiy_study_get.state. The current public contract does not expose a separate sync flag on cookiy_recruit_status; the server already performs the billing-aware reconciliation it needs before returning status.
• NEVER describe recruitment as started/stopped from preview-only output.
• When questionnaire recruitment is involved, say Cookiy is recruiting. Do not name downstream recruitment suppliers or the underlying questionnaire engine.

Identifiers:

• NEVER truncate, reformat, or summarize study_id, job_id, interview_id, base_revision, or confirmation_token.

Payment:

• On HTTP 402: prefer structuredContent.data.payment_summary and checkout_url; if those fields are absent, fall back to error.details.
• To add cash credit outside a specific 402 flow, use cookiy_billing_cash_checkout, then confirm with cookiy_balance_get.
• cookiy_balance_get returns cash credit and per-product paid counters; OAuth signup bonus is folded into cash credit, not exposed as a separate experience_bonus field.
• Cash credit may apply to study creation, simulated interviews, report access, and recruitment when balance remains.
• When both exist, product-specific paid credits are consumed before cash credit.

URLs:

• NEVER construct URLs manually. ONLY use URLs from tool responses.
• NEVER guess undocumented REST paths.

Agent boundary:

• After recruitment payment, check cookiy_recruit_status first and cookiy_interview_list second before deciding whether to retry cookiy_recruit_create.
• Do not promise background monitoring unless a real automation layer exists outside the current MCP call.

Constraints:

• interview_duration max 15 minutes. persona.text max 4000 chars. interviewee_personas max 20. attachments max 10.

Canonical reference

The server's developer portal spec endpoint provides the authoritative tool reference. If a tool behaves differently from this skill's description, the server's runtime behavior takes precedence.