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README.md
Cognito: AI-Powered Web Notes Assistant 🚀
Cognito is your intelligent browser companion — combining RAG, TTS/STT, note-taking, and customizable personas into a sleek sidebar assistant. Now with hybrid retrieval using BM25 + semantic embeddings, Tool Orchestration, and MCP Servers.
✨ Features
Customizable UI: Includes theme options and a redesigned, two-tab settings layout.
🖱️ One-Click Note Capture
Right-click any page to instantly add it to your notes.
Automatically captures title, URL, and context.
Uses AI to clean and structure the content.
👨 Persona Support & Model Selection
Pick your assistant style and model from the header.
🔎 Smart Web & Wiki Search
AI chooses semantic keywords for Wikipedia or full web search.
Automatically summarizes results or extracts key content.
Use inside chat, or directly trigger via tools.
💾 Structured Note System
Notes include:
title, content, tags, url, and id
Supports Markdown with YAML frontmatter for easy export.
Great for syncing with Obsidian or static site knowledge bases.
🛠️ Tool-Based LLM Interaction
Uses tools like:
Save Note
UpdateMemory
Web Search
Planner
etc.
Responses are structured in pure JSON, enabling predictable parsing and automation.
System prompts enforce tool discipline per persona.
9 native tools plus MCP tools you can add
🧠 Memory & Context Engine
Short- and long-term memory support via updateMemory.
Auto-injects parsed web page content for interactive Q&A.
Hybrid RAG: Combine classic BM25 scores with semantic embeddings (private); weight-adjustable for optimal retrieval.
Note System & Chat History: Save, organize, and retrieve past conversations effortlessly.
🔧 How Hybrid RAG Works
BM25 Search retrieves document chunks based on keywords.
Semantic Embeddings (only available in private/dev builds) score based on meaning.
Cognito is a Chrome extension built with a modular architecture:
Side Panel (React & Redux): The main user interface where you interact with the AI, manage settings, and view results. Built with React for a dynamic experience and Redux (via webext-redux) for robust state management.
Background Script: The engine of the extension. It handles communication with AI services, manages long-running tasks, injects content scripts, and coordinates actions across the extension.
Content Scripts: Injected into web pages to securely access and relay page content (text, HTML) to the Side Panel and Background Script for processing by the AI.
This setup allows Cognito to understand the context of your browsing and provide relevant AI assistance without leaving your current tab.
💻 Technology Stack
React: For building the interactive Side Panel UI.
TypeScript: For robust and maintainable code.
Redux & webext-redux: For state management across the extension components.
Tailwind CSS: For styling the user interface.
Webpack: For bundling the extension.
Various UI libraries (Radix UI components like @radix-ui/react-accordion, lucide-react for icons) for a polished look and feel.
📖 Usage Examples
Summarize a News Article: Open a lengthy article, open the Cognito side panel, and click "Summarize Page" or type "Summarize this page."
Ask About Page Content: While viewing a complex technical document, select a confusing paragraph and ask Cognito, "Explain this selected text in simpler terms."
Connect to Local LLM: If you have Ollama running with a model like Llama3, go to Cognito's settings, select Ollama, enter your model details (e.g., http://localhost:11434 and model name llama3), and start chatting with your local AI.
Save Notes: During a chat, if the AI provides a useful snippet or you want to remember a key piece of information, click the "Add to Note" button (or a similar function) to save it for later reference within Cognito's notes feature.
🤝 Contributing
Contributions are welcome! If you'd like to help improve Cognito, please:
Fork the repository.
Create a new branch for your feature or bug fix: git checkout -b feature/your-feature-name or bugfix/issue-number.
Make your changes.
Ensure your code lints (e.g., npm run lint if a lint script is configured) and builds correctly (npm start).
Push your branch to the remote repository. The -u flag links it for future pushes.
git push -u origin feature/your-feature-name
Submit a pull request with a clear description of your changes.
(Consider adding details on coding style, development setup, or linking to a dedicated CONTRIBUTING.md file if one is created in the future.)
🙏 Acknowledgments
Cognito was originally built upon and inspired by sidellama.
