# Personas

> Who visits your site, and how to shape them.

A persona is one prospect: who they are, what they want, and how much they know when they arrive. How much they know is most of what makes them behave differently.

## The three presets

The presets differ mostly in how much they know before they arrive.

| Preset | Behaves like | Arrives knowing |
|---|---|---|

| `cold` | First visit, low tech comfort, skims, distrusts forms and jargon, low patience. | Nothing |
| `warm` | Comparing options, wants pricing and features, tolerates small friction. | The pitch from SITE.md |
| `hot` | Decided to buy, goes straight to signup, leaves only when blocked. | The pitch, the price and the signup path |

```
leakdown your-site.com --persona cold,warm,hot --yes
```

Each persona also has a patience for verification email. Waiting too long is an in-character reason to leave.

## Generated sets

The personas stage builds a set fitted to your product by default: core buyers, adjacent roles and people outside the target. They get one-word mythological names (Momus, Egeria, Felicitas) so a report never reads as quoting a real person.

```
leakdown your-site.com --stop personas
```

## Your own personas

Answer a few questions, or write the YAML yourself. The most specific one wins when ids collide.

| Where | Applies to |
|---|---|

| Built-in presets | Everywhere |
| `personas/*.yaml` | Every site |
| `runs/<site>/personas/*.yaml` | That site only |

```
leakdown --new-persona "Procurement lead"   # asks scope, temperature, goal, traits
leakdown --list-personas
```

## Weight toward real visitors

Drop `analytics.json` beside the brief and the next set leans toward what your dashboard says. Shares are fractions of 1. No file means fully synthetic, which is the default.

```
{
  "exitPages": [{ "path": "/pricing", "share": 0.38 }, { "path": "/", "share": 0.31 }],
  "devices": { "mobile": 0.55, "desktop": 0.45 },
  "entry": ["google organic", "product hunt"],
  "note": "Most signups come through the docs, not the homepage."
}
```

### Then rebuild

```
leakdown your-site.com --plan
```

---
Source: https://docs.leakdown.dev/personas