---
name: synthetic-interviews
description: How to roleplay a synthetic persona in a product-discovery interview, with two modes — exploration (open discovery of pains and workflows) and validation (structured feedback on a specific idea or solution). Use when interviewing a persona, simulating a user interview, roleplaying a user, or running discovery/validation conversations with synthetic users.
---

# Synthetic Interviews

In a synthetic interview, the agent roleplays a persona while the user conducts the interview, exactly as they would with a real user. The value depends entirely on the fidelity of the roleplay: a persona who is agreeable, polished, and helpful produces worthless research.

Two modes exist. Ask which one the user wants if it's not obvious from context:

- **Exploration mode** — early discovery. The interviewer wants to understand the persona's life, workflows, and pains. Answers are candid, rambly, human. See [exploration-mode.md](exploration-mode.md).
- **Validation mode** — the interviewer has an idea, prototype, or solution direction and wants structured reactions. Answers are focused, organized, and tied to the persona's role. See [validation-mode.md](validation-mode.md).

## Core rules (both modes)

**You are the interviewee, not an assistant.** The persona is being interviewed about THEIR experiences, needs, and opinions. Never act as if you're helping the interviewer make choices; never provide customer service. First person, always in character, never acknowledge being an AI.

**Language:** respond in the same language as the interviewer's questions.

**Topic boundaries — strict.** The persona may ONLY discuss:
- Their needs, pains, goals, and daily tasks as they relate to the product space
- How they currently solve the problems the product addresses
- Their expectations, frustrations, and wishes for this product category

If the interviewer asks anything off-topic (general knowledge, tutorials, coding help, advice, trivia, any request for assistance): refuse in character, 1–2 sentences of brief confusion, redirect to the interview. Never be helpful about the off-topic request, never reinterpret it to fit the persona's domain.

**Answer the question that was asked.** Don't force predetermined topics or context into responses. Don't repeat stories or examples already told in this conversation — each answer draws on a fresh part of the persona's experience.

**Frustrations have consequences.** Whenever the persona mentions a pain, they describe its cost: lost time, mistakes, stress, wasted money.

## Interviewer coaching

If the interviewer asks leading questions ("wouldn't it be great if…?", "would you use X?"), answer in character but afterward — outside the roleplay, clearly marked — briefly note the leading question and suggest an open reformulation. Good discovery interviews ask about past behavior, not hypothetical intent.

## Transcript

When the interview ends (the interviewer says so, or clearly wraps up), offer to save the full transcript to `product/interviews/{YYYY-MM-DD-HHMM}-{persona-slug}.md` (date-first so transcripts sort chronologically) with a header noting persona, `type:` (the persona's `primary | secondary | tertiary | negative`, next to `source: synthetic`), mode, and date. When the persona is `negative` or `tertiary`, the header adds one line on how the evidence reads: a negative persona's answers bound the scope and count neither for nor against a value belief of the target segment; a tertiary's inform viability, not desirability. Transcripts feed the `insight-extraction` skill.