# Show HN: CrowdMind, Free app for building AI personas and testing stimuli > Source: > Published: 2026-07-14 13:43:25+00:00 Build synthetic research panels, test ideas with AI personas, run follow-up roundtables, and export stakeholder-ready reports. [ Download for Windows](https://github.com/Brokenwatch24/crowdmind/releases/latest) · [Features](#features)· [Templates](#marketplace-templates)· [MCP](#mcp-for-agentic-workflows) Crowdmind is a local-first desktop app for fast qualitative research before you spend money on real panels, ads, prototypes, or customer interviews. Create a panel of synthetic personas, show them a product, message, landing page, pricing proposal, image, PDF, or multi-step funnel, and get structured reactions: scores, objections, positive signals, recurring themes, confidence indicators, and follow-up answers. It is built for founders, product marketers, researchers, agencies, and product teams who want directional signal in minutes while keeping their research data on their own machine. **Create realistic persona panels** manually, from CSV, from marketplace templates, or with AI.**Run stimulus tests** with text, multiple images, PDFs, or full funnel sequences.**Continue any test** with follow-up questions, selected-persona follow-ups, or full-panel roundtables.**See the swarm** directly inside the test results page, with sentiment-colored nodes and drag selection.**Chat 1:1 with any persona** from their profile or directly from a test response.**Use multiple LLM providers**: OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, OpenRouter, or the built-in offline local provider.** Export reports**as JSON, Markdown, summary PDF, or a full investor/client-style PDF report.** Run locally with SQLite**. Your workspaces, panels, tests, notes, and chat history stay on your machine.** Connect agentic workflows**through the included CrowdMind MCP server. Crowdmind turns raw synthetic feedback into shareable research artifacts. PDF export supports: **Summary report**: concise methodology, findings, recommendations, and limitations.** Full report**: stimulus, sentiment, scorecard, recurring themes, objections, positive signals, panel voices, persona-by-persona detail, and recommendations. Markdown and raw JSON exports are also available for Notion, docs, PRs, and custom analysis workflows. - Workspaces and panels for organizing client, product, or market research. - AI-generated personas from a professional research brief. - Manual persona creation and “improve with AI”. - CSV import from survey/customer data. - Persona version history, so historical results stay tied to the persona version that produced them. - Persona avatars from deterministic seeds, uploads, or AI image generation. - Single stimulus tests: text, image, PDF, or multimodal. - Multi-attachment tests with multiple images and PDFs. - Funnel tests with ordered stages, drag-and-drop stage editing, and funnel templates. - Individual mode for fast parallel responses. - Focus-group mode where personas see a rotating summary of peer reactions. - Scorecards for custom criteria like clarity, trust, purchase intent, pricing fit, or usability. - Executive summary. - Confidence and diversity badge. - Recurring themes with representative quotes. - Objections and positive signals. - Benchmarking against previous tests in the same panel. - Audience comparisons and panel timeline. - Notes with Markdown for custom analysis. - Ask more questions after a test. - Select a subset of personas from the swarm. - Ask the full panel as a roundtable. - Use quick prompts for improving message, pricing, trust, or conversion. - Jump from any answer to the persona profile or 1:1 chat. - OpenAI - Anthropic - Google Gemini - OpenRouter - Local deterministic provider, no API key required API keys are stored locally. When available, Crowdmind uses the OS keychain through Electron `safeStorage` ; if OS encryption is unavailable, the Settings page makes that clear. Download the latest Windows installer: [https://github.com/Brokenwatch24/crowdmind/releases/latest](https://github.com/Brokenwatch24/crowdmind/releases/latest) No API key is required to try Crowdmind. Use the Local provider and load the demo workspace from the welcome screen. Requirements: - Node.js 20+ - npm - Windows users compiling native modules need Python and Visual Studio Build Tools with Desktop C++ workload. ``` git clone https://github.com/Brokenwatch24/crowdmind.git cd crowdmind npm install npm run dev npm run dev # launch the Electron app in development npm run typecheck # TypeScript checks npm run smoke-test # end-to-end smoke test with the local provider npm run build # production build npm run dist:win # Windows installer in release/ npm run mcp # build and run the CrowdMind MCP server ``` Crowdmind includes an MCP server for tools like Codex and other MCP-compatible agents. ``` npm run mcp -- --db "C:\path\to\crowdmind.sqlite" ``` The MCP server can list workspaces, panels, personas, generate local persona previews, save personas, run simple local tests, and fetch compact test results. Crowdmind ships with panel templates for: - B2B SaaS buyers - Consumer LatAm segments - Families and middle-class households - Gen Z social shoppers - Restaurant and hotel operators in Colombia - SaaS founders and operators in LatAm You can export any panel as a `.json` template and share it. The app can also pull new templates directly from this repository without waiting for an app update. To contribute one, see: **Desktop shell**: Electron + electron-vite** Renderer**: React 18 + TypeScript + Tailwind + Radix primitives** State**: Zustand** Database**: SQLite with`better-sqlite3` and Drizzle schema definitions**LLM layer**: provider adapters with schema validation and retry/backoff** Reports**: self-contained HTML rendered to PDF through Electron** MCP**: stdio server for local agentic workflows All database, filesystem, API key, and provider calls run in the Electron main process. The renderer talks through a typed `window.crowdmind` API exposed by the preload script. Packaged builds check GitHub Releases through `electron-updater` . Updates are never installed silently: - Crowdmind shows an update banner. - You click download. - After download, you choose when to restart and install. Release assets must include the installer, blockmap, and `latest.yml` . Current release: [v0.2.4](https://github.com/Brokenwatch24/crowdmind/releases/tag/v0.2.4) Verified locally with: ``` npm run typecheck npm run smoke-test npm run dist:win ``` macOS and Linux packaging are configured but not yet release-tested from their native platforms. MIT