🏆 Built for Google Developer Group Hackathon 2025
Teaching problem-solving skills through AI mentorship, not memorization 🚀
🚀 Quick Start | 📊 Live Dashboard | 📥 Download Extension | 🎯 Why This Matters
✅ Quick Testing: The extension is ready to use! No compilation or build required.
| What You Need | Time Required | Where to Get It |
|---|---|---|
| 🧩 Chrome Extension | 2 minutes | Download & Load Unpacked |
| 🔑 Free Gemini API Key | 1 minute | Google AI Studio |
| 📊 Web Dashboard | 0 minutes | Already Live! |
Total Setup Time: ~3 minutes ⏱️
This project leverages Google's cutting-edge cloud and AI ecosystem to deliver a production-ready solution:
- Real-time mentorship through Socratic questioning
- Smart hint generation without spoiling solutions
- Interview simulation with natural conversation
- Code analysis and pattern recognition
- Personalized learning recommendations
- 400 tokens per call for efficient, concise responses
- Firebase Authentication - Secure Google Sign-In across extension & web
- Cloud Firestore - Real-time NoSQL database for user progress
- Firebase Hosting - Blazing-fast global CDN for web dashboard
- Firebase Security Rules - Protecting user data and privacy
- Manifest V3 - Latest extension architecture
- Content Scripts - Seamless integration with coding platforms
- Side Panel API - Non-intrusive AI assistant interface
- Deployed on Google Cloud Platform via Firebase
- Global distribution through Google's CDN
- 99.9% uptime with automatic scaling
The extension is fully built and ready to use. No compilation needed!
-
📥 Download the Extension
https://github.com/jayesh-durge/Cognify/archive/refs/heads/main.zip- Click the link above or download from the repository
- Extract the ZIP file to a permanent location on your computer
⚠️ Important: Don't delete this folder after installation!
-
🔧 Load in Chrome Browser
- Open Chrome and navigate to:
chrome://extensions/ - Enable "Developer mode" (toggle switch in top-right corner)
- Click "Load unpacked" button
- Navigate to the extracted folder
- Select the
Cognify-main/chrome-extensionfolder - ✅ Extension will appear in your toolbar!
- Open Chrome and navigate to:
-
🔑 Get Free Gemini API Key
- Visit: Google AI Studio
- Sign in with your Google account
- Click "Create API Key in new project" or "Get API key"
- Copy the generated API key (starts with "AIza...")
- 💡 100% Free - No credit card required!
-
⚙️ Configure Extension
- Click the Cognify extension icon in Chrome toolbar
- Click the ⚙️ Settings gear icon
- Paste your Gemini API key in the input field
- Click "Save API Key"
- Click "Sign in with Google" to authenticate
🎉 Done! Your AI mentor is ready.
The dashboard is hosted on Firebase and ready to use:
🌐 Open Dashboard → cognify-68642.web.app
- ✅ No installation required
- ✅ Works on any device with a browser
- ✅ Sign in with the same Google account
- ✅ View your progress, analytics, and interview reports
-
Visit a Coding Platform:
- 💻 LeetCode
- 🏆 CodeChef
- 🎯 Codeforces
- 📚 GeeksforGeeks
-
Open Any Problem (try an easy one first!)
-
Click the Cognify Icon in your Chrome toolbar
-
Choose Your Mode:
- Practice Mode: Get progressive hints while solving
- Interview Mode: Simulate real technical interviews
-
Start Solving!
- Ask questions to the AI mentor
- Request hints when stuck
- Get code analysis
- Track your progress automatically
-
View Analytics:
- Visit the Dashboard
- See your solved problems, scores, and performance trends
- Get personalized recommendations
- 50M+ people prepare for technical interviews annually
- $5B+ spent on interview prep courses globally
- 70% of candidates fail technical interviews on first attempt
- 90% of learning comes from passive consumption (watching, reading)
- Only 10% comes from active problem-solving
-
❌ Passive Learning Trap
- Students watch solutions on YouTube
- Copy code from GeeksforGeeks
- Don't develop actual problem-solving skills
- Struggle when faced with new problems
-
❌ No Personalized Guidance
- Generic hints don't address individual struggles
- No real-time mentor available 24/7
- Expensive to hire personal coaches ($100-300/hour)
- Batch courses don't adapt to your pace
-
❌ Fragmented Experience
- Practice on LeetCode
- Track progress manually
- Mock interviews on different platforms
- No unified view of growth
-
❌ Binary Feedback
- "Accepted" or "Wrong Answer"
- No insights into your approach
- Can't identify weak patterns
- No actionable improvement suggestions
-
🎯 Active Learning Through Socratic Method
- AI asks guiding questions instead of giving answers
- Progressive hints build problem-solving muscle
- Learn to think, not memorize
- Result: True skill development, not pattern matching
-
🤖 24/7 Personal AI Mentor
- Instant help exactly when you're stuck
- Adapts to your skill level
- Costs $0 (powered by free Gemini API)
- Result: Personalized guidance for everyone
-
🌐 Unified Learning Ecosystem
- Single extension works across all platforms
- One dashboard shows all progress
- Seamless data sync via Firebase
- Result: Complete visibility into your journey
-
📊 Intelligent Analytics
- Track patterns in your struggles
- Identify weak topics automatically
- Get recommendations based on your data
- Result: Data-driven improvement plans
Lives in your browser, activates when you need it:
You: *Reading a LeetCode problem on Two Sum*
You: *Clicks Cognify icon*
AI: "I see you're working on Two Sum. Let's think through this together.
What data structure could help you track numbers you've seen?"
You: "Maybe an array?"
AI: "Good start! But think about lookup speed. What if you need to check
if you've seen a number before? What's faster than O(n) search?"
You: "Oh! A hash map!"
AI: "Excellent! Now, what would you store as key and value?"
💡 Key Features:
- ✅ Never gives direct solutions
- ✅ Asks questions that guide your thinking
- ✅ Adapts difficulty based on your responses
- ✅ Tracks time and hints used
- ✅ Non-intrusive side panel
AI: "Let's conduct a technical interview. I'll be your interviewer.
Tell me your initial approach to this problem."
You: *Explains approach verbally*
AI: "Interesting. What's the time complexity of your approach?"
You: "O(n²) with nested loops"
AI: "Can you think of a way to optimize it? What about space-time tradeoff?"
You: *Discusses optimization*
AI: "Good thinking! Now let's talk about edge cases..."
[After interview]
AI: "Here's your feedback:
Communication: 85/100 - Clear explanation, good structure
Technical: 70/100 - Correct but could optimize further
Overall: 78/100 - Strong performance, interview-ready!"
💡 Key Features:
- ✅ Realistic interview simulation
- ✅ Natural conversation flow
- ✅ Evaluates communication + technical skills
- ✅ Detailed scoring with feedback
- ✅ Saves reports to dashboard
Cloud-hosted, accessible anywhere:
📈 Your Stats (This Week)
🏆 8 Problems Solved (+4 from last week)
⭐ 50/100 Avg Interview Score
⏱️ 6 Total Interviews
📊 Performance Trends
[Interactive Chart showing improvement over time]
💪 Strong Topics: Arrays, Hash Tables, Two Pointers
⚠️ Needs Practice: Dynamic Programming, Graphs
📝 Recent Activity
✅ Completed Interview - "Merge k Sorted Lists" - Score: 5/100
✅ Solved "Next Permutation" - 1 hint used
✅ Completed Interview - "Swap Nodes in Pairs" - Score: 50/100
🎯 Recommended Next
→ Practice: "Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters"
→ Study: Dynamic Programming Patterns
💡 Key Features:
- ✅ Complete progress visualization
- ✅ Cross-platform problem tracking
- ✅ Interview performance analysis
- ✅ Personalized study recommendations
- ✅ Responsive design (works on phone/tablet)
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ COGNIFY ECOSYSTEM │
│ (Built Entirely on Google Technologies) │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ │
│ ┌─────────────────────┐ ┌──────────────────────┐ │
│ │ Chrome Extension │◄────────►│ Web Dashboard │ │
│ │ (Manifest V3) │ Auth │ (React + Vite) │ │
│ │ │ Sync │ Firebase Hosting │ │
│ │ Content Scripts │ │ TailwindCSS │ │
│ │ Side Panel API │ │ React Router │ │
│ └─────────────────────┘ └──────────────────────┘ │
│ │ │ │
│ └──────────────┬───────────────────┘ │
│ │ │
│ ┌───────▼────────┐ │
│ │ Firebase Cloud │ │
│ ├─────────────────┤ │
│ │ • Authentication│ │
│ │ • Cloud Firestore│ │
│ │ • Security Rules│ │
│ │ • Hosting │ │
│ └────────┬────────┘ │
│ │ │
│ ┌────────▼────────┐ │
│ │ Gemini 2.5 Flash│ │
│ ├─────────────────┤ │
│ │ • AI Mentorship │ │
│ │ • Hint Gen │ │
│ │ • Interview Sim │ │
│ │ • Code Analysis │ │
│ │ • 400 token/call│ │
│ └─────────────────┘ │
│ │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
- React 18.2.0 - Modern component architecture
- Vite 5.0 - Lightning-fast build tool
- TailwindCSS 3.3 - Utility-first styling
- React Router 6 - Client-side routing
- Recharts 2.10 - Interactive data visualization
- Lucide React - Beautiful icon system
- Firebase Authentication - Secure OAuth with Google Sign-In
- Cloud Firestore - Real-time NoSQL database
- Firebase Hosting - Global CDN deployment
- Firebase Security Rules - Data protection
- Google Gemini 2.5 Flash - AI intelligence engine
- Manifest V3 - Latest Chrome extension standard
- Content Scripts - Platform integration (LeetCode, CodeChef, etc.)
- Side Panel API - Native Chrome UI component
- Background Service Workers - Event-driven architecture
- Chrome Storage API - Persistent local data
- Git & GitHub - Version control
- Firebase CLI - Deployment automation
- ESLint - Code quality
- Chrome DevTools - Debugging
Cognify seamlessly integrates with the most popular coding platforms:
- Track progress across all platforms in one dashboard
- Visualize your performance trends over time
- Get personalized recommendations on what to study next
- Monitor time spent and efficiency metrics
- Automatic time tracking for each problem
- Session history to review your journey
Scenario: CS student preparing for tech interviews at Google, Microsoft, Amazon
How Cognify Helps:
- Practice on LeetCode with real-time AI hints
- Get feedback on approach before writing code
- Track weak topics and get targeted practice
- Dashboard shows readiness across topics
Result: Structured preparation with measurable progress
Scenario: Participating in CodeChef/Codeforces contests
How Cognify Helps:
- Analyze time spent per problem during practice
- Learn optimization techniques through guided hints
- Track contest performance trends
- Get recommendations for similar problems
Result: Improved problem-solving speed and accuracy
Scenario: Watching coding tutorials on YouTube
How Cognify Helps:
- AI assistant answers questions about video content
- Get code explanations in real-time
- Request practice problems related to the topic
- Track concepts learned from videos
Result: Active learning instead of passive watching
Scenario: Developer wanting to level up DSA skills
How Cognify Helps:
- Personalized learning paths based on current skill
- Daily recommendations keep learning consistent
- Progress tracking provides motivation
- AI mentor available 24/7 for guidance
Result: Continuous improvement with clear milestones
Your AI mentor that lives in your browser and runs on your computer.
What it does:
- Provides AI hints while you solve problems
- Tracks your progress automatically
- Works on LeetCode, CodeChef, Codeforces, GeeksforGeeks, YouTube
- Side panel AI assistant
- Session timing and management
Setup: Download and install locally on your machine
💾 Download Extension | 📖 Installation Guide →
Cloud-based analytics dashboard accessible from anywhere.
What it does:
- Visualizes your learning progress
- Shows performance analytics
- Provides interview reports
- Personalized recommendations
- Works on any device
Setup: None! Just visit the link and sign in
🌐 Open Dashboard → | 📖 Learn More →
- Node.js (v16+)
- Google Chrome browser
- Firebase account
- Gemini API key (free)
- Clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/jayesh-durge/Cognify.git
cd Cognify- Set up Chrome Extension:
cd chrome-extension
# Follow detailed instructions in chrome-extension/README.md📖 Chrome Extension Setup Guide →
- Set up Web Dashboard:
cd web-dashboard
npm install
npm run dev
# Dashboard will run at http://localhost:5173-
Configure Firebase:
- Create a Firebase project
- Enable Authentication (Google provider)
- Set up Firestore Database
- Add Firebase config to both components
- See detailed guides in component READMEs
-
Get Gemini API Key (Free):
- Visit Google AI Studio
- Create and copy your API key
- Add to extension config
📚 Detailed setup instructions available in component READMEs
Your personalized learning command center with progress tracking and analytics
Onboarding experience introducing key features and quick setup
Track all solved problems across platforms with difficulty filters
Detailed interview analytics with scoring and performance metrics
Complete feature walkthrough and platform capabilities
- Novel Approach: Socratic method applied to coding education
- Seamless Integration: Works within existing platforms, no context switching
- AI-First Design: Leverages Gemini AI for intelligent mentorship
- Multi-platform content script injection
- Real-time AI integration with streaming responses
- Complex state management across extension and web app
- Firestore data modeling for scalable analytics
- Addresses Real Problem: 50M+ people prepare for tech interviews annually
- Growing Market: $5B+ spent on interview prep courses
- Easy to Scale: Cloud-first architecture ready for millions of users
- Monetization Ready: Freemium model with premium features
- Zero Learning Curve: Works on platforms students already use
- Non-Intrusive: Side panel doesn't disrupt coding flow
- Beautiful UI: Modern, responsive design with smooth animations
- Accessible: Works on any device with Chrome
- ✅ Multi-platform support (LeetCode, CodeChef, Codeforces, GFG)
- ✅ AI hint system
- ✅ Progress tracking dashboard
- 🔄 System design interview practice
- 🔄 Peer comparison and leaderboards
- 🔄 Study groups and collaboration
- 🔄 Mobile app (iOS & Android)
- 📋 Company-specific preparation tracks
- 📋 Resume analysis and improvement
- 📋 Behavioral interview practice
- 📋 Job application tracking
- 📋 Marketplace for custom problem sets
- 📋 Mentor matching platform
- 📋 Corporate training partnerships
- 📋 API for third-party integrations
We welcome contributions! Please see our contributing guidelines:
- Fork the repository
- Create a feature branch (
git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature) - Commit your changes (
git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature') - Push to the branch (
git push origin feature/AmazingFeature) - Open a Pull Request
This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.
Built with ❤️ by passionate developers who understand the struggle of interview preparation.
Project Maintainer: Jayesh Durge
Project Maintainer: Ayush Sonekar
Project Maintainer: Nihar Meshram
- Google Gemini AI for providing the AI capabilities
- Firebase for reliable backend infrastructure
- Open Source Community for amazing tools and libraries
- All the Interview Candidates who inspired this solution
- GitHub Issues: Report bugs or request features
- Email: jayeshkishordurge@gmail.com
- Dashboard: https://cognify-68642.web.app/
Made for developers, by developers 💻
Star ⭐ this repo if you find it helpful!
🚀 Download Extension | 📊 Open Dashboard | 📖 Extension Guide | 📈 Dashboard Docs | 🐛 Report Bug