MCP Best Practices — Getting the Most from Koji + Claude

Prompting Best Practices

Be Specific About Your Research Goal

Claude creates better studies when you give it context about your business situation.

Less effective:

"Create a study about user feedback"

More effective:

"Create a Mom Test study about why our trial-to-paid conversion rate dropped 15% last quarter. We think the onboarding flow is too complex but we want to validate this with actual users who recently churned."

The second prompt gives Claude enough context to generate a focused problem statement, relevant key questions, and a meaningful hypothesis to test.

Use Methodology Names

When you know what methodology fits, say it explicitly:

• "Use the Mom Test approach" — for validating ideas without bias
• "Apply Jobs-to-be-Done framework" — for understanding user motivations
• "Run a Customer Discovery study" — for exploring problem spaces
• "Set up an Exploratory study" — for open-ended research
• "Create a Lead Magnet study" — for research that doubles as lead gen

If you are unsure, just describe your goal and Claude will recommend one.

Ask for What You Actually Need

Instead of pulling everything and then filtering, be targeted:

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Study Design Best Practices

Start With a Hypothesis

Studies with a clear hypothesis produce more actionable results:

"Create a study to test whether users abandon checkout because of unexpected shipping costs. My hypothesis is that showing shipping estimates earlier would reduce cart abandonment by 20%."

This gives the AI interviewer a focused direction while still allowing for unexpected discoveries.

Keep Interview Plans Focused

The best MCP-created studies have:

• 3-5 core questions (not 15)
• Clear guardrails from the methodology
• A specific target audience defined
• An estimated duration of 10-20 minutes

Longer interviews lead to respondent fatigue and lower-quality insights.

Iterate Your Brief Before Publishing

Use the review flow:

1. Create the study
2. Ask Claude to review the interview plan
3. Refine questions based on Claude's suggestions
4. Publish only when the brief feels right

You cannot un-publish easily, so take the time to get the brief right.

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Analysis Best Practices

Use Study Data Before Reports

koji_get_study_data gives you structured summaries that Claude can analyze conversationally. Use this for:

• Quick pattern spotting
• Hypothesis validation
• Identifying which interviews to deep-dive into

Reserve koji_generate_report for when you need a formal, shareable document.

Ask Claude to Cross-Reference

Claude shines at synthesis. Try:

"Compare the themes from my pricing study with the themes from my onboarding study. Are there any overlapping pain points?"

"Looking at the sentiment breakdown, which respondent segments are most dissatisfied? What do they have in common?"

Use Section Filtering for Reports

For large reports, request specific sections to keep responses focused:

"Just show me the key takeaways and recommendations from my report"

This is more useful than pulling the entire report and scrolling through it.

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Workflow Patterns

The Quick Pulse Check (2 minutes)

"How are my active studies doing? Show me any new completed interviews since yesterday."

The Stakeholder Prep (5 minutes)

"Generate a report from my onboarding study and give me the top 3 takeaways I should present to the leadership team."

The Research Sprint (30 minutes)

1. "Create a discovery study about [topic]"
2. "Customize the landing page with our brand colors and a lead form"
3. "Import these 50 contacts from our CRM"
4. [Wait for interviews]
5. "Analyze the results and generate a publishable report"

The Continuous Discovery Loop (Weekly)

Monday: "Any new interviews this week? Summarize the key themes."
Wednesday: "Show me transcripts from the 2 most insightful interviews."
Friday: "Update my report with the latest interview data."

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Common Anti-Patterns

❌ Creating Too Many Studies

Each study should answer one research question. Do not create a study for every feature idea — group related questions into a single study with the right methodology.

❌ Skipping the Brief Review

Publishing a study without reviewing the interview questions leads to unfocused conversations and low-quality insights. Always review before you publish.

❌ Reading Every Transcript

Use summaries and theme analysis for pattern detection. Only deep-dive into transcripts when you find something worth exploring.

❌ Generating Reports Too Early

Wait until you have at least 5 completed interviews. Reports from 1-2 interviews will not show reliable patterns.

❌ Overloading Lead Forms

Keep pre-interview forms to 2-3 fields. Every additional field reduces completion rates.

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Token Budget Tips

MCP responses are constrained by context window size. Here are strategies for efficient use:

1. Use section filters when getting reports — request only the sections you need
2. Paginate exports — transcripts are limited to 10 per request for a reason
3. Use study data instead of individual transcripts for overview analysis
4. Ask specific questions rather than requesting "everything"

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Next Steps

• Tool Reference — Detailed parameter reference
• PM Workflow Guide — Role-specific workflow
• Continuous Discovery — Always-on research pipeline