Participant Kit Platform Help

Participant Kit (participantkit.com, formerly Consent Kit — rebranded 2025-11-09, old domain
301s over) is an ethics-first participant & consent management platform (ReOps) for UX / user
research teams — "manage user research efficiently, cost-effectively and ethically." It owns the
operational layer around studies: recruit (opt-in panels + screeners), prepare (a participant
CRM, informed consent forms / NDAs with e-signatures and full audit trails, bulk email, scheduling,
incentives), and respect (accessibility/WCAG 2.2 AA, GDPR data governance, retention + deletion
reminders, subject-access requests). Differentiators: UK/EU data residency, accessibility-first,
researcher-founded, not VC-backed. Customers: BBC, Nielsen Norman Group, Co-op, TPXimpact.

Its place in the landscape is the research-ops / participant-management class — the compliance +
participant-relationship ops layer, closest to User Interviews / Respondent on recruiting and to
Ethnio on the participant-CRM side. It is not an all-in-one recruit+run+repository suite
(/sales-great-question), not a testing/survey tool, and not a synthesis/repository
(/sales-notably, /sales-trill). It does one thing well: managing participants and their consent.

Two things to say almost every time:
- The API is a hard gate. A well-documented REST API exists, but access is Enterprise-plan only
AND "request only" (OAuth2 Bearer; API keys "coming soon"), with no webhooks and no MCP. On
Team / Team Plus / Organisation there is no API at all — data-out is UI export. Say this before
designing any integration.
- Participant Kit manages participants, it doesn't run the study. Consent, panels, scheduling,
retention — yes. Usability tests, surveys, interviews, synthesis — no. If the user wants to run or
analyze research, route it out.

Step 1 — Gather context

If references/learnings.md exists, read it first for accumulated platform knowledge.

Ask only what you can't infer:

1. What do you want from Participant Kit?
   - A) Consent / compliance — consent forms, NDAs, e-signatures, audit trail, retention/deletion, SARs
   - B) Panels / participant CRM — build an opt-in panel, screeners, re-contact rules, move off spreadsheets
   - C) Run a study's ops — create a study, add participants, send remote consent, schedule, incentives
   - D) Automate / export — the REST API (projects/studies/participants/consents/panels/data links)
   - E) Choose / price — Team vs Team Plus vs Organisation vs Enterprise, or Participant Kit vs a peer
2. Which plan are you on? This decides everything about automation — the API is Enterprise-only.

Skip-ahead: if the user wants to compare research tools across the market, or the
validate-before-building method, that's a /sales-idea-validation question — route in Step 2.

Step 2 — Route or answer directly

When routing, give the exact command: "This is a {domain} question — run: /sales-great-question {original question}"

Otherwise, answer Participant Kit-specific questions using Step 3.

Step 3 — Participant Kit reference

Read references/platform-guide.md for the full reference — the capability/automation-surface table
(API vs UI-only), best-effort pricing/plan gates, the Project → Study → Participant → Consent data model
(with JSON shapes) plus panels/fields/data-links, and quick-start recipes (consent-safe panel export,
create-study-and-participants, consent audit pull, data-link with retention reminder). Read
references/participant-kit-api-reference.md for the verbatim API surface (OAuth2 Bearer, endpoints,
JSON models, include=pii/properties, pagination, error shapes). Answer using only the relevant
section — don't dump the full reference.

Step 4 — Actionable guidance

• State the API gate first, every time automation comes up. The REST API is Enterprise-plan only
  AND "request only" — there is no self-serve API key on Team / Team Plus / Organisation, auth is
  OAuth2 Bearer (API keys "coming soon"), and there are no webhooks and no MCP server. If the
  user isn't on Enterprise, tell them the only data-out is UI export and route a real pipeline job
  to /sales-great-question (which has API + webhooks + MCP). Don't design an integration without
  confirming the plan.
• Warn about the event_id legacy trap. A "study" is created/queried with event_id, not
  study_id (on POST /v1/participants), and every app_url contains /events/ — the resource was
  renamed Event→Study but the wire format kept "event." Flag this whenever you show create code.
• Treat PII as opt-in. Read endpoints omit email/name unless you pass ?include=pii;
  panellist custom fields need ?include=properties, whose field_ids you resolve against
  GET /v1/fields (fetch once, cache). Recommend syncing the non-PII shape by default and only
  requesting PII on the narrow path that needs it.
• Lean on consent-safe defaults. GET /v1/panels/:id/panellists returns only opted-in,
  not-opted-out panellists, so a straight pull is consent-safe; consent records (GET /v1/consents,
  filter status=agreed/refused) carry consented_at + permissions[] for an immutable audit
  export. There are no webhooks — poll and diff on timestamps for near-real-time sync.
• Name the plan walls before setup. API + SSO + custom contracts are Enterprise/Organisation-gated;
  participant caps are 500 / 2,000 / 5,000 (Team / Team Plus / Organisation) and seats 3 / 10 / 20;
  Team has no add-ons. Present all pricing as best-effort and point to participantkit.com/pricing.
• Pick it for the right reason, and describe the actual deliverables. When the problem is
  consent/compliance, spell out what it gives — informed consent forms / NDAs with e-signatures, an
  immutable audit trail, and a participant CRM that replaces the spreadsheet (plus retention/deletion
  reminders). It wins on consent/compliance + UK-EU data residency + accessibility, not on running
  or analyzing studies. If the user needs to recruit-and-run a study, route to
  /sales-great-question; if they need to synthesize existing interview data into themes, route to
  /sales-customer-feedback or /sales-notably — say so plainly.

If you discover a gotcha or tip not in references/learnings.md, append it there with today's date.

Gotchas

Best-effort from research (2026-07) — pricing (Team £60/$79 → Enterprise custom), plan gates, participant
caps, and the beta API surface all move; verify at participantkit.com/pricing and participantkit.com/docs/api.

• The API is Enterprise-only + request-only. No self-serve key on Team/Team Plus/Organisation; OAuth2
  Bearer today (API keys "coming soon"). If someone expects an instant key on a paid plan, correct it.
• No webhooks, no MCP, no documented Zapier/Make. REST is the only programmatic surface — you poll,
  you don't get pushed events. For an event-driven pipeline use /sales-great-question instead.
• event_id, not study_id. Creating a participant uses event_id; app_urls contain /events/.
  Legacy naming from before the Event→Study rename.
• PII is opt-in. Default responses omit email/name — pass ?include=pii; custom fields need
  ?include=properties + a join to GET /v1/fields. multiple_options values come back as arrays.
• Rebrand + old bookmarks. consentkit.com now 301s to participantkit.com; the GitHub org is still
  github.com/consentkit. Same account/data — no migration.
• Participant/seat caps are hard. 500/2,000/5,000 participants and 3/10/20 seats by plan; Team has no
  overage add-ons, so a growing panel forces an upgrade.
• It's not a testing/analysis tool. No usability tests, surveys, or synthesis — don't recommend it for
  running or analyzing research.

Related skills

• /sales-great-question — The all-in-one UX research platform (recruit and run studies + a repository), with a full automation surface (REST API + HMAC webhooks + native MCP). The pick when you need to run and analyze research end-to-end or build an event-driven pipeline — where Participant Kit only manages participants + consent. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-great-question -a claude-code
• /sales-respondent — Respondent (respondent.io) — the recruit-only peer: recruit + screen + schedule + pay real participants from a large B2B/professional panel via a Partner REST API, then run the study in your own tool. The pick when you need a managed recruiting panel, not a consent/participant-ops layer. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-respondent -a claude-code
• /sales-idea-validation — The tool-agnostic validate-before-building method + the full research/persona/validator landscape (use this to decide build-or-not; managing participants is not the same as validating demand). Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-idea-validation -a claude-code
• /sales-customer-feedback — Analyze existing NPS/CSAT/VoC/interview data across tools into themes (the post-collection analysis peer; Participant Kit collects consent + participants, it doesn't synthesize findings). Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-customer-feedback -a claude-code
• /sales-do — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do -a claude-code

Examples

Example 1: "How do I export our Participant Kit panel and consent records into our warehouse?" (developer/automation)

User says: "I want panellists and their consent status flowing into BigQuery automatically."
Skill does: Leads with the gate — the REST API is Enterprise-plan + request-only (OAuth2 Bearer,
no webhooks/MCP), so if they're not on Enterprise the only data-out is UI export and a real pipeline
belongs on /sales-great-question. If they are: a polling pipeline —
GET /v1/panels/:id/panellists?include=pii,properties (page 100/loop, only opted-in members returned),
join field_ids against GET /v1/fields, and GET /v1/consents?status=agreed for the audit trail —
diffed on timestamps. Flags syncing the non-PII shape by default.
Result: The user knows the plan gate up front and builds a consent-safe polling export.

Example 2: "We're drowning in consent spreadsheets — is Participant Kit the fix?"

User says: "Different consent forms per project, no audit trail, GDPR is a mess."
Skill does: Confirms this is Participant Kit's core job — informed consent forms/NDAs with
e-signatures + full audit trail, a participant CRM to replace the spreadsheet, retention/deletion
reminders, and UK/EU data residency for GDPR. Notes it manages consent but doesn't run the study,
and prices it (Team £60/$79 up to 3 seats/500 participants → Enterprise) as best-effort, pointing to
participantkit.com/pricing.
Result: The team adopts it for consent/participant ops and knows the participant/seat caps.

Example 3: "The interviews went great — should I build the product?"

User says: "We ran consented interviews in Participant Kit and people loved it."
Skill does: Explains Participant Kit handled the consent + participant ops, not the demand
question — a positive interview is not observed demand. Routes the build-or-not decision to
/sales-idea-validation (take the go/no-go to a real behavior test) and the synthesis of the
interview data to /sales-customer-feedback or /sales-notably.
Result: The founder validates demand with a real behavior test instead of over-reading the interviews.

Troubleshooting

"Where's my Participant Kit API key? I'm on a paid plan and getting 401s"

Symptom: You can't find an API key screen, or calls return {"error": {"type": "invalid_request_error"}}.
Cause: API access is Enterprise-plan only AND "request only" — Team / Team Plus / Organisation
have no API, and even Enterprise access must be enabled by Participant Kit. Auth is OAuth2 Bearer
(API keys are "coming soon," not live).
Solution: Confirm you're on Enterprise, contact Participant Kit to enable API access and issue an
OAuth2 token, then send Authorization header uses an OAuth access token from the approved secret store On lower plans, use **UI export** or move the pipeline to/sales-great-question`.

"My create-participant call keeps failing with a validation error"

Symptom: POST /v1/participants returns {"errors": {...}, "type": "validation_error"}.
Cause: The study identifier field is event_id, not study_id (legacy Event→Study naming), and
name + email are both required.
Solution: Send {"name": ..., "email": ..., "event_id": "sdy_..."}. The email is used to send the
consent form remotely, so it must be a real address. Pass ?include=pii to get email/first_name back in
the response.

"My panellist export is missing everyone's email and custom fields"

Symptom: GET /v1/panels/:id/panellists returns ids + opt-in timestamps but no contact details.
Cause: PII is opt-in. Read endpoints omit email/name unless you request them, and custom
field values aren't included by default.
Solution: Add ?include=pii,properties. Resolve each property's field_id against GET /v1/fields
(fetch once, cache); multiple_options values return as arrays, everything else as strings. Note the
endpoint only returns opted-in, not-opted-out panellists by design.

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