NEWS

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FocusGroup 0.5.2 (2026-09-12)

Corrections replacing 0.5.1, which was never published.

• The untouched default is now runnable: a compact default guide (one opening, one icebreaker, two engagement, three exploration, one closing) and a default of two responses per question plan 93 model outputs, inside the default max_calls of 100. The old defaults planned 467 outputs and always tripped their own gate.
• Participant construction no longer invents data. A call that supplies nothing now samples real respondents from the bundled ANES 2024 records (the easy route: their demographic profile rendered with the survey's own question wording), where it used to fabricate ages, incomes, and four Likert answers from fixed distributions. Direct personas receive no synthetic records, and a demographics or survey frame with fewer rows than participants is refused instead of recycled (recycled rows are one research unit counted several times). create_agents_from_data() and create_agents_from_survey() remain the detailed routes, the first also carrying respondents' stated answers.
• Topic modeling treats each utterance as a document rather than pooling every turn by speaker. Pooling made each document a person, so the fitted topics separated speakers rather than subjects and a six-person group left six documents; unit = "speaker" restores the old behavior. Fitting few documents relative to num_topics now warns.
• Survey value cleanup strips a numbered-label prefix only when whitespace follows the period, so "1. Male" cleans and "1.5" survives. Trailing parentheticals are kept: "Asian (non-Hispanic)" stays whole.
• Continuation comparisons keep the end-of-session interim summary out of the cut histories, which could otherwise carry post-cut information into both arms. Perturbation targets are matched by message_id.
• The Studio's saved session is sanitized: no model configurations (a config can carry a literal key) and no runner closures leave the session. Continuations re-supply the configuration from the sidebar, as before.
• A failed final-summary call warns and returns the completed transcript instead of destroying the run.
• An unparseable desire score is NA, where it used to become a zero that scored as real evidence. Unscored agents are rescored individually, flow parameters are validated, and the selection metadata records threshold-lowering and highest-below-threshold fallbacks.
• A truncated reply retried above a caller-set token cap announces the escalation.
• Blank strings count zero words.
• Participation is reported as a spread, without a "balanced" verdict.
• The analysis print shows the fitted topic count.
• analyze_focus_group() gains speakers (default "participants", which keeps the moderator out of the text statistics) and language (English-specific methods skip, with a note, for other languages).
• Imported transcripts match moderators by exact alias ("mod", "moderator", "facilitator", "interviewer") and refuse ambiguity. A substring match used to make "Modesto" a moderator.
• The flat-mode prompt carries the same truthful-disclosure line as the role-flipped mode.
• Removed the unused default_llmr_config() and readr dependency; R floor aligned with LLMR at 4.1.

FocusGroup 0.5.1

Initial CRAN release.

• run_focus_group() is the single high-level session runner. It requires an explicit config, accepts n_participants, guide, flow, and message_mode, and performs a model-call cost preflight before live work.
• run_focus_group() returns a focus_group_result with the stable fields focus_group, transcript, summary, participants, usage, and metadata. Its print method gives a concise run summary.
• create_agents(), create_agents_from_data(), and create_agents_from_survey() construct agent-ID-keyed rosters from supplied personas, in-memory records, labeled survey files, and pre-rendered persona panels.
• ConversationFlow is the public extension base. Built-in round-robin, probabilistic, and desire-based flows are constructed with create_conversation_flow().
• Model configuration arguments use config; group-level configuration uses admin_config. The FGAgent configuration field is config.
• The .runner seam accepts an experiments data frame with config and messages list-columns and returns those rows with at least response_text.
• Session logs give every row a unique integer message_id and record the moderator cycle as round, while retaining phase.
• analyze_focus_group() returns a focus_group_analysis with stable fields, typed empty components, and an issues table. Descriptive analysis runs offline. Thematic analysis and model summaries require an explicit config.
• focus_group_from_transcript() accepts moderator_id; when it is omitted, speaker identifiers containing "mod" provide the fallback.
• get_default_prompt_templates() contains only templates used by supported package operations.
• run_focus_studio() starts the optional Shiny interface for running sessions, reading transcripts, and comparing continuations from edited histories.
• The studio now exports both complete .rds sessions and transcript-only CSV files, and a finished run can be passed directly to the Analyze tab.
• ANES participant selection now includes full rendered-persona inspection and control over which respondent columns enter each persona.
• The Analyze tab now presents analyze_focus_group() components, optional model themes and summaries, package guidance, source provenance, and timing.
• Transcript mapping now chooses text and speaker defaults by column name and keeps the two roles distinct when separate columns are available.
• Continuation experiments now support three labeled treatment arms, repeated runs per arm, true planned-call counts, retained responses, summaries, and response-length comparisons.
• Studio run, analysis, model-analysis, and continuation actions are disabled until their known inputs are ready, with the unmet requirement shown beside each disabled action.
• Studio live paths honor the shared temperature, maximum output token, and reasoning-effort settings; long text results use scrollable output blocks.
• The Run tab now provides a topic-aware, line-based editor for all five moderator-guide phases. Included phases, question counts, call estimates, and both participant-source paths use the edited guide.
• Run configuration is grouped in collapsible sections while the run action remains outside the sections.
• Transcript tables give text most of the available width, wrap complete words, and retain hidden identifiers in a column-visibility menu. Numeric tables use display-only rounding from LLMR.shiny.
• TF-IDF results now show a user-selected number of ranked terms per speaker in a table and, when ggplot2 is installed, a faceted bar chart.