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Built to help, not solve.

A patient teacher that lives on your desk.

Siko watches the homework wherever it is — Pages, a PDF in Preview, Google Docs, Khan Academy — and gives Socratic hints when stuck. It won’t just hand over the answer. That’s the whole point.

Join the waitlist See how it works macOS 13+ · Elementary school → senior year · Math, English, science, history, SAT/ACT/AP · private by default
algebra-1 — practice set 3
3. Solve for x:
5(x − 2) + 1 = 3x + 7
5x − 4 + 1 = 3x + 7
5x − 4 + 1 = 3x + 7 (look here)
5x − 3 = 3x + 7
2x = 10
x = 5
MATH · L1/3
Take another look at the second term on your first line — what does 5 multiply across?
press ⌘⇧Space for a deeper hint  ·  ⌘⇧. to dismiss
12:34 · here when you need me

The real overlay, on real work. The yellow box highlights the first wrong step — the student’s line, never the original problem — and the hint asks a question instead of giving the answer.

Siko works on top of anything with text or equations.

  • Pages
  • Microsoft Word
  • Google Docs
  • Notion
  • PDF in Preview
  • Notability
  • GoodNotes
  • Khan Academy
  • IXL
  • Safari
  • Chrome
  • College Board

+ anywhere else with a passage of writing or a problem on screen.

How it works

Three things to know.

Siko works with whatever’s already open — Pages, a PDF in Preview, Google Docs, a textbook scan. It sits quietly on top and helps when asked.

  1. 01

    Boot it.

    Siko lives as a tray icon and an ambient bubble in the corner. There's no main window, no upload step, no separate app to learn. You open your homework where you normally would.

    0:00 · just say the word
  2. 02

    Hit ⌘⇧Space.

    When the student is stuck, they hit one shortcut. Siko looks at the screen, finds the first wrong step, draws a small yellow box around it, and asks a question. Not the answer — a question.

    ⌘ ⇧ Space trigger a hint
  3. 03

    Read the report.

    Each session ends with an honest email — to your own address for self-tracking, a parent's for observability, or both. What was worked on, what got stuck, how it resolved, plus one specific next-step suggestion. No vague compliments.

    ● sarah@gmail.com
    Sarah — Math — 28 min
    3 hints · 1 walk-through · 1/2 quizzes

The Method

Siko isn’t the answer key.
Here’s what it is instead.

Three escalating Socratic hints. Then a walk‑through. The answer is the last thing on offer, not the first. This is the pedagogical spine of the product — and the part that makes Siko different from every other homework-help app out there.

L1 · nudge

Siko points at the wrong step with a question — never a statement.

MATH · L1/3
Take another look at the second term on your first line — what does 5 multiply across?
press ⌘⇧Space for a deeper hint  ·  ⌘⇧. to dismiss
L2 · concept

If the student presses ⌘⇧Space again, Siko names the concept. Still no answer.

✓ You're looking in the right place.
MATH · L2/3
This is a distribution problem — the 5 has to multiply both x and −2. What does that give you?
press ⌘⇧Space for a deeper hint  ·  ⌘⇧. to dismiss
L3 · step

Pressed once more, Siko suggests a concrete next move — still pointing them at the work, not doing it.

MATH · L3/3
Try writing 5 × x and 5 × −2 separately, then combine. What do you get?
last hint  ·  ⌘⇧. to dismiss  ·  ⌘⇧Space for a fresh look
After L3 · Try one with me

A Socratic walk-through on a parallel problem.

If three escalating hints didn’t crack it, Siko offers a different problem — same underlying skill, different surface. The student above was stuck on distribution; here’s the same student being walked through a kinematics problem they didn’t know how to start. Siko never writes the next step. It only asks, confirms, or redirects.

  • → Verifies the work. Computes what the right next step would be before judging the answer — whether that’s an equation, a formula, or a thesis sentence.
  • → Charitable on slips. An arithmetic mistake gets pointed back at the arithmetic. A wrong formula choice gets one Socratic redirect — never the right formula handed over.
  • → Teaches when stuck. If the student says “idk” twice, Siko names the prerequisite rule and asks them to apply it.
  • → Exits gracefully. If the gap is too wide, Siko says so and saves the spot for later — instead of grinding on.
Let’s try one together
A car traveling at 18 m/s brakes uniformly to a stop in 4.5 seconds. How far does it travel while braking?
What formula do you need?
d = ½at²
Hold on — that one assumes the car starts from rest. Is it?
no, it’s already at 18 m/s
Right. Which formula handles a non-zero starting speed?
d = ut + ½at²
Yes. So what value of a do we use here?

Between hints

First, you think.
The hint follows.

Between hints, Siko pauses and shows dashed boxes around each line of the student’s work. They tap the step they want to look back at — or type it.

  • ✓ Tap the right step. The next hint comes with “you’re looking in the right place”.
  • ↗ Tap a different step. A soft orange ring marks your tap, and the next hint redirects: “look here instead”.
  • ◎ Or type it. “the part where I multiplied 5” works just as well as a tap.

Why this exists: handing out hints without any diagnostic work from the student makes them dependent on the hints. Asking which step? makes them re-read their own work first — which is the whole point of homework.

algebra-1 — practice set 3
3. Solve for x:
5(x − 2) + 1 = 3x + 7
5x − 4 + 1 = 3x + 7
5x − 3 = 3x + 7
2x = 10
x = 5
Before the next hint — which step do you want to look back at?
(Tap any step in your work)
or type instead just show me the hint

What Siko does

Four ways to help.
Same Socratic posture in all of them.

Math, English, science, history, language. Siko detects the subject from what’s on screen — no one has to pick.

01

Hint

⌘⇧Space — a Socratic hint, escalated up to three times.

The fast path. Hit ⌘⇧Space; in about three seconds Siko looks at the screen, finds the first wrong step (not a later step that's consistent with an earlier broken one), draws a yellow box, and asks a question.

Press ⌘⇧Space again to escalate: L1 nudge → L2 concept → L3 concrete step. The exact same flow works whether the student is doing algebra, debugging a thesis, or reading an SAT passage — subject is auto-detected from what's on screen.

SAT Reading — Practice Test 4
Passage 2 of 4

Although early adopters of the new technology faced steep learning curves, by 2015 it had become so commonplace that businesses with extensive paper-based systems began to seem antiquated. Indeed, what was once cutting-edge soon became simply expected.

12. Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the passage?
  1. A) It introduces a counterargument the author will rebut.
  2. B) It marks a shift from describing a transition to characterizing its result.
  3. C) It provides a specific example that supports the previous claim.
  4. D) It questions the validity of an earlier assertion.
ENGLISH · L1/3
Notice the word ‘Indeed’ at the start of the underlined sentence. What does it usually do when it begins a sentence?
press ⌘⇧Space for a deeper hint  ·  ⌘⇧. to dismiss
example shown: SAT reading-comprehension MCQ
02

Explain

Zoom out from this problem to the concept.

When the student wants to understand the topic, not just solve the problem. Siko picks a format based on the concept: equation- and rule-based concepts (chemistry balancing, kinematics, distribution) get a Rule / Why / worked example / Watch out card. Prose-based concepts (thesis statements, photosynthesis, causes of historical events) get plain paragraphs.

Same constraint as everywhere else: small, specific, and never a model paragraph the student can copy verbatim.

Explain Close
Rule: balance atoms one element at a time, starting with the most complex molecule. Adjust coefficients, never subscripts.
A chemical reaction conserves atoms — the same count of each element must appear on both sides of the arrow. Changing a subscript would change the molecule itself.
Example:
CH₄ + O₂ → CO₂ + H₂O           (start, not yet balanced)
CH₄ + O₂ → CO₂ + 2H₂O          (balance H — 4 on each side)
CH₄ + 2O₂ → CO₂ + 2H₂O         (balance O — 4 on each side)
Watch out:
Changing CH₄ to CH₂ would “balance” the equation arithmetically, but it’s now a different molecule. Coefficients only.
example shown: chemistry — balancing equations
03

Quiz me

A similar problem, gently graded.

Practice on the concept that just gave them trouble. Siko generates one problem of equivalent difficulty (round numbers, no traps), accepts a typed answer, and grades it leniently on form — 1.5, 3/2, and 1½ are all the same answer.

Wrong answers come back with a one-sentence redirect that doesn't reveal the right answer. Then "Try another."

Quiz me
If 2(x − 3) = 10, what is x + 4?
example shown: SAT-style algebra
04

Check work

"done with that? tap to check."

Click the bubble during a pause and Siko runs a conservative validator on the work it can see. Three outcomes: a green ✓ "looks right — keep going" if everything checks out, a friendly "nothing to check yet" if no work is on screen, or a hint if it found a real, definite mistake.

The nudge
done with that? tap to check
If the work checks out
✓ looks right — keep going
If Siko found a mistake
hint shown · press ⌘⇧. to dismiss
example shown: math (no work yet)

After every session

A thoughtful email after every session.

Every Siko session ends with an honest email to whoever’s on the report list — your own address for self-tracking, a parent’s for observability, or both. It says, specifically, what got worked on and where things got stuck.

Honest
We never invent metrics. The numbers in the email are counted directly from the session, not guessed.
Specific
“Got stuck distributing the 5 across (x − 2)” — not “had trouble with math.”
Calibrated
The tone shifts based on what actually happened — encouraging, neutral, or concerned. Never pathologizing.

“Siko refuses to give answers — every hint above is a Socratic question or nudge that asks the student to do the thinking.” — the footer on every email Siko sends

Across sessions

The patterns no single session can show.

After a few sessions, open the Patterns dashboard and Siko surfaces what’s happening across the arc — the concept that keeps recurring, the one quietly figured out, where the trajectory is going. Two ways to use it: self-tracking for an older student watching their own arc, or parental observability for a family that wants to share the view.

Recurring sticking points
Concepts that show up in two or more sessions. Siko names the specific pattern — not “trouble with algebra,” but “distributing negative terms in 3(x − 4), 4(y − 3), and 3(z − 5).”
Breakthroughs
Concepts that went from unresolved in an early session to self-corrected in a later one. Where it was, where it is — named, dated, real.
Trajectory of independence
Resolve rate across sessions, hints requested over time. The numbers show, plainly, whether the student is getting unstuck faster on their own.
Subject balance
How time is splitting across math, English, science, history. Useful when one subject is silently eating the week.

How Siko avoids making things up

Every pattern claim is grounded in a deterministic signal Siko computes on your Mac before any LLM call — recurring concept clusters across sessions, breakthrough arcs, resolve-rate trends. The AI writes the voice around those facts. It can’t invent a recurrence that didn’t happen.

Siko — Patterns

Past study sessions

12 sessions over the last 3 weeks · 5h 12m total
Suggested
You worked the distributive property across 3 sessions — and started catching the negative-sign mistake before asking for help.
3 sessions · 84 minutes · math + history celebrate
Saved Updated 2 hours ago

Three of your last five sessions touched distribution. In the first you needed all three hint levels plus a walk-through; in the third you spotted the sign error before pressing ⌘⇧Space. Resolve rate climbed from 33% to 67% to 80%.

Subject mix

Math 65% English 25% Science 10%

Resolve rate across the arc

↗ 33%  →  67%  →  80%

Recurring sticking point

Distributing negative terms
Observation
You’ve slipped on the −2 in 5(x−2), the −3 in 4(y−3), and the −5 in 3(z−5).
Try next
Before each algebra step, rewrite 3(x − 4) as 3·x + 3·(−4) before simplifying — that catches the negative.

Mastery momentum

Combining like terms
Where it was
First session — needed an L2 hint on Apr 14 to even see what to combine.
Where it is
Now self-correcting without a hint. Last seen Apr 28.

Recommended focus

Spend five minutes before each algebra session on negative-distribution warm-ups — one problem like 3(x − 4), one like 4(y − 7).

Privacy & trust

Honest with your data.

Siko only looks at your screen when you ask. Here’s what stays local, what we send to the AI model, and what we never do.

✓ Local

Stays on the Mac

  • Session history
  • The per-session reports
  • Cross-session signals (recurring concepts, breakthroughs)
  • Report email setting
  • Hint outcomes & preferences

Located in ~/Library/Application Support/Siko/. Patterns are computed on your Mac before any LLM call.

→ Sent to the AI model

Only when asked

  • The current screenshot
  • The diagnosis text
  • Typed input during a walk-through
  • Per-session summaries when you generate a Patterns synthesis

Sent to the AI model only when you press ⌘⇧Space or tap a Siko action.

✗ Never

We don’t do this

  • Store screenshots on our servers
  • Pool data from different users on any server
  • Sell or share data
  • Train a model on your work
  • Build a learner-profile dossier

The Patterns dashboard runs entirely on your Mac. Nothing about it leaves your machine — not even to us.

Common questions

Honest answers.

01 How is this different from Photomath, Khan Academy, or Chegg?

Photomath gives the answer. Chegg sells the answer. Khan Academy teaches you a curriculum on their platform.

Siko does none of these. It sits on top of whatever the student is already doing — their actual assignment, in their actual app — and asks Socratic questions until they figure it out themselves. It never gives the answer outright. When the student does ask to see it, they have to escalate through three hints first.

02 Will it create dependency?

Siko is designed against dependency. Three escalating hints. A Socratic probe between hints 1 and 2 that asks the student to re-read their own work before more help. A walk-through that makes them write the next step themselves. At L3, the primary action is to try a parallel problem — not to see the answer.

Every session ends with an honest report so progress is visible — to whoever's on the list, parent, tutor, or the student themselves. The Patterns dashboard makes the same answer visible over time — resolve rate climbing or flat, hint counts dropping or steady. If anyone is over-relying, the data shows it.

03 Can I see past sessions — and patterns over time?

Yes. Siko has a Patterns dashboard you open from the menu bar. It shows every past session in a list — click any one and you get the same report that gets emailed.

Across sessions, Siko auto-detects suggestion chips: recurring concepts (things the student keeps tripping on), breakthroughs (concepts that went from unresolved to self-corrected), subject sprints, and time windows. Click a chip and Siko synthesizes a cross-session view — what's recurring, what's improving, what to focus on next.

The synthesis is grounded in deterministic signals computed on your Mac before any LLM call fires. Siko can't invent a pattern that the data doesn't support.

04 What subjects does it work for?

Math, English, science, history, and language. Siko detects the subject from what's on screen — no one has to pick.

It's best on math, where the diagnostic is most precise. It's good on prose subjects (thesis statements, essay structure, historical claims). It's weakest on novel problems with multiple valid approaches.

05 Does it work offline?

No. Siko sends screenshots to the AI model for analysis, and that requires internet. If the wifi cuts out mid-session, Siko shows a calm message instead of a hint.

The work can continue offline — the overlay just won't be able to help until the connection is back.

06 Can I pause or disable it?

Yes. The tray icon has a Pause option (5 min, 15 min, until resumed) and a Quit option. Siko can be paused at any time. The point is to help the student, not to surveil them — Siko is for their use, not for monitoring them.

The session report only fires when a session ends. If a session is never started, there's nothing to report.

07 What does it cost?

$20 a month per student. Flat rate, unlimited sessions — no per-hint pricing, no per-subject add-ons, no upsells.

Charter members on the waitlist get their first month free. The invite link arrives when your spot opens up.

08 Mac only?

Yes, for now. Siko uses macOS-specific APIs (Screen Recording permission, the menu bar accessory mode, the transparent click-through overlay). A Windows version is on the roadmap but won't ship in v1.

09 What about older students — college, AP?

It works. The product was designed for K–12 but the pedagogy isn't grade-locked. An older student installs the same app and puts their own email in the report field. The Socratic ladder works whether you're 12 or 19.

10 Where does the name come from?

The name comes from sikhānā — Hindi for 'to teach.'

A patient teacher, in software.

A note from the founder

I built Siko because most AI tools aimed at students today are answer engines, not teachers. They hand the answer over politely. They optimize for the kid finishing the problem, not for the kid understanding it.

A kid who finishes a problem without understanding it has gotten nothing out of the homework. Siko is built around the opposite posture: a learning tool whose first instinct is to ask a question, not give an answer.

What I wanted was the teacher I had in seventh grade. The one who would lean over my shoulder when I was stuck, ask me one question, and walk away. Not the answer — a question. And then come back two minutes later and ask another one.

The name Siko comes from sikhānā — Hindi for “to teach.” A patient teacher, in software.

That’s the whole product. A patient teacher that lives on your desk and refuses to do the homework for you.

— Rohan

Onboarding one student at a time

Get on the waitlist.

You’ll hear from us when your spot opens up — not before. Charter members get their first month free. After that, Siko is $20/month, flat. No drip, no newsletter.

We’ll never share your email. Unsubscribe any time — one link in every email.