Cope
Face it. Decide. Follow through.
- Should I take the job in the other city?
- How do I get my money back under control?
- What do I do about my father's care?
- Why have I put off the thing I keep saying I'll do?
- Or no question at all, only a sense that something isn't right.
Cope is an assistant for the issues in your life: a decision, a goal, a state you're stuck in, a relationship. You talk an issue through with it, and it keeps a document about the issue that belongs to you. When you come back, it asks what actually happened.
Someone to call about the hard stuff
An assistant you can phone, and that phones you. A check-in call at the hour you choose, about what's due and the one issue worth a few minutes today. A walk where you think an issue through out loud. Tasks captured by voice into the issue they belong to.
Cope calls, unprompted. It remembers what was due and what you expected. It brings in a consultant when another view helps, and every new step gets a date and an expected result, confirmed by voice.
One assistant, one voice. Nothing private on voicemail, or before you've said it's a good time. First as a check-in in the app, typed or spoken; then by phone.
A morning check-in, on a walk
A designed illustration of where Cope is heading: the words are written by us and performed by synthetic voices. The calls aren't built yet.
Read the call
An incoming ring, the pickup
Yeah?
CopeMorning, it's Cope. Good time for five minutes?
Yeah, I'm out walking.
CopeTwo quick things, then the flat. Did you book the dentist? It was due yesterday.
Forgot. Again.
CopeFriday?
Friday.
CopeAnd the landlord: you expected an answer by today.
He did answer. He wants a decision by March.
CopeSo: dentist Friday, and the landlord's deadline is March, noted in the flat. Right?
Yes.
CopeOn the flat, you're torn between renewing and moving. Let's get a second view from the Treasurer on the money side.
The TreasurerMoving's going to cost you the deposit gap up front. Call it two months' rent, before you've saved a thing. And if you can't cover that without borrowing, renewing's the safer bet.
Hold on, crossing… …OK. The gap is the problem. My sister might lend it.
CopeThen that's the next step. Ask your sister by Sunday, and you expect a clear yes or no. Shall I add that?
Yes.
CopeDone. Dentist Friday, sister by Sunday, decision by March. Talk tomorrow at 8:30.
Great, thanks.
Start with a problem, or without one
Bring a problem
Say what's going on in your own words. Cope asks until it understands, and the issue starts from there.
Ask for a check-up
If you can't name a problem, one consultant goes through an area of your life (money, health, work, a partner, family, and seven more) against what it holds: for money, things like "spend less than you earn". It says where your life and its view part ways, as its view, and asks whether you see it that way. Only the gaps you agree with go into your document. Offered once, when an issue starts; Cope never goes looking for problems on its own.
Invite someone Coming
Work an issue through live with a partner, a co-founder or a coach, each on your own device. Cope mediates: it answers once everyone has spoken, treats what each person says as their account, not the facts, and the document changes only with everyone's yes. Whoever you invite sees the whole issue, including what you said before they joined.
Call, or be called Coming
A check-in in the app first: what's due across your issues, quick checks, the changes confirmed with one yes at the end. Then the same by phone, at the hour you set, and you calling Cope from a walk.
One issue, one conversation, never ended
You pause it by leaving and resume it by coming back. After a break, Cope starts with a short recap and the actions that came due.
Consultants, when they help
Where another view helps, Cope calls in consultants: a cast of distinct voices, each holding a developed position on part of life. For one round, one to three of them answer the same question without seeing each other, and you read every answer in full.
Cope then writes what they agree on, where they pull apart, and passes on every question they asked you. Where serious people would disagree, you see both sides at full strength, not an average nobody holds.
Make it your own. There are 32 consultants; you choose who's in the room. Write your own consultants and playbooks next to Cope's, test them in the simulator, and share them as a pack. Importing someone else's comes with a plain warning: their voices will work on your problems, and Cope has no safety layer between them and you.
Nothing changes without your yes
Cope suggests changes to your document at natural pauses, or when you ask, as a short list in the conversation. You answer Yes, No, or Discuss, and leave out any change you don't want.
Every accepted set of changes is a revision with a title and a reason, and you can undo it. Suggestions you turn down are remembered, so Cope knows what you've declined. An edit you make by hand is noticed and kept as a revision of its own.
The document is yours
What the problem is, what you believe, the options and what you decided, and a plan of small dated actions, each with the outcome you expect.
Follow-through, not advice. A daily reminder tells you what's due. Coming back, Cope asks how each action went, compares it with what you expected, and what that says about the next step.
Voice. You can talk instead of typing: Cope answers aloud, reads its suggestions out, and takes a spoken yes or no.
What only Cope does, as far as we know
Memory you approve
Every change shown before it's made, versioned like commits, with turned-down suggestions remembered and hand edits detected.
Predictions checked
Each action's expected result is set against what happened.
Independent voices
Consultants answer blind in one round, and their disagreement is passed to you, not averaged away.
| Kind of product | What it does well | What it lacks |
|---|---|---|
| General assistants | Think a hard question through today; voice; reminders | Memory written by the model, out of your sight; no plan checked against what happened; a safe middle in one voice |
| Assistants that call you | A call about your day | Work admin: calendars and email, not your life's problems |
| Accountability apps | A call that asks whether you did it | No plan behind the call, no help with how |
| AI journaling and coaching | Reflection over time | Feelings and patterns, not decisions and action; built for engagement |
| Templates and notes | A record | Nothing pushes back or asks how it turned out |
Two ways to run it
Local
Always supported: the browser or terminal app, your own API keys, your data on your device. Your conversations go only to the model providers you choose, at what they charge.
Hosted Coming
Cope's server, run by us, for a price, with no keys of your own.
| Local | Hosted (coming) | |
|---|---|---|
| Who sees your issues | You, and the model providers you choose | Also Cope's server, which runs the conversation |
| Your data | On your device: the browser, or a folder | On Cope's server |
| Several devices | A copy each; move it with an export and an import | The same data on every device, nothing to sync |
| Clearing the browser | Takes your data with it, unless exported | Your data stays on the server |
| What you pay | Less: the model providers' price, nothing on top | More: Cope credits, the providers' price plus our margin |
| Models | Any provider, or your own endpoint | The ones Cope offers |
| Setup and upkeep | Your own keys, and exports to back up or move your data | Sign in; nothing else to look after |
| Daily reminder | Yes | Yes |
| Phone calls (coming) | No | Yes |
| A shared issue while its host is offline (coming) | No: the host's device runs it | Yes |
| If Cope's server is down or gone | Keeps working | Stops |
To try Cope before getting a key, the browser app starts on CopeRouter, our free route to the models, within its limits. Your conversations then pass through our router on their way to the model providers. Add your own key at any time, and they stop passing through us.
A feature needs a server only if it has to act while none of your apps are open (a call at 8:30) or something from outside has to reach Cope (you dialing its number). Everything else works locally. Two small relays help the local apps: one delivers your daily reminder, and one (coming) connects you to someone you've invited to an issue. Both pass only what your own devices have encrypted, keep nothing they could read, and you can run either yourself. Moving between the two is an export and an import of one folder, so you can always leave with everything.
Cope comes with its own test bench
In the simulator, AI users bringing real kinds of problems use the real app over several visits, and a judge model scores each run blind, on a written rubric. A second test plays the same problem against the same model with nothing of Cope around it, a plain chat with one frontier model, and a judge compares the two conversations, in both orders so the order doesn't decide. New parts are tested the same way: the check-up also meets a simulated person whose money is in order, to catch it inventing problems.
- We'll publish the results, regularly. Claims about helping people with their lives are easy to make; we want to show that Cope works, and keep showing it, including when it doesn't. The first comparison with a plain chat came out even.
- Anyone can run it. The simulator runs in the browser app, on your own keys, so you can test your own problems, your own changes, or check our claims.
- It's a research question too. Does a room of opinionated voices, run by a moderator, help a person more than one capable model on its own? The answer could go either way, and we'll publish it either way.
The honest limits
- Not a therapist or a crisis service. Cope has no safety layer today: no crisis detection, no hotline prompts, and the consultants speak without softening. A check-up raises hard subjects on its own (your inner life, a partner, your family).
- Not built to keep you talking. Each issue is meant to end. The assistant will call only on the schedule you set or when something in your plan is due, and it looks for problems only when you ask for a check-up.
- What it costs. Each conversation is real model calls at the providers' prices, which depend on the models you choose; the cost is shown per issue. CopeRouter is free within its limits.
- Where it could fail. You may tap yes without reading. A record of your decisions can pin you to a self you've outgrown. Voices from one model can sound like one voice in masks. Talking a problem through can become a way of not acting on it. A check-up can talk you into a problem you don't have, or measure your life against a standard that isn't yours. These are the risks of the very features that make Cope worth using, and we name them so you can watch for them.
Why Cope
When "cope" came into English in the late 1300s, it meant to quarrel, and soon to come to blows, from the Old French couper, "to strike". Only by the 18th century did it come to mean handling something difficult. Cope is named for both: not putting up with a problem, but facing it, and dealing with it.
What we believe
- A problem isn't a conversation. The things that matter in a life run for weeks or months: a move, a debt, a parent getting older, a job that's wrong. They need somewhere to live between the conversations about them. A chat assistant forgets them, or remembers them somewhere you can't see.
- The record is yours. The assistant suggests; you say yes. Every change to your issue's document is shown to you first, kept as a revision with a reason, and can be undone. Its guesses about you get into the document only if you accept them. Today's you overrides the old record. When you share an issue with someone, the record is yours together: nothing goes in without everyone's yes.
- Advice is cheap; following through is the work. Most of what people need to do about their problems, they already half know. What's missing is the next small step, a date for it, an honest guess at what will happen, and someone who asks afterwards how it went.
- An assistant should be reachable the way a person is. A good assistant is someone you can call from a walk and who calls you when something is due. Not an app you have to remember to open. That is where Cope is heading: the same issues, the same document, one voice on the phone. And like a person you trust, it says nothing private on your voicemail, or before you've said it's a good time.
- Disagreement is information. Where serious people would split over your question, you should see both sides at full strength, each better argued than your first instinct, not an average nobody holds. Where a question has a plain answer, you should get it plainly.
- Not every disagreement is the same kind. A dispute about facts becomes something to find out. A dispute about what will happen becomes a bet, checked later against what did. A dispute about what matters goes back to you, because only you can settle it. The same holds between people working an issue through together: Cope names their disagreement and leaves it theirs, and one they can't settle yet is written down as one, each view with its owner's name.
- It treats you as an adult. It engages fully with health, law, money and love, says how confident it is, and doesn't moralize.
- A check-up has opinions. You don't have to arrive knowing what's wrong. Ask, and a consultant measures one area of your life against what it holds, says where your life and its view part ways as its own view, not a verdict, and asks whether you see it that way. Only what you agree with goes into your record.
- Each issue is meant to end. The assistant isn't built to keep you talking. It calls on the schedule you set, or when something in your plan is due, never to keep you engaged. Success is an issue closed, not a streak.
- Your keys, your device, your files. Cope always runs locally, on your own keys, with your data on your device and nothing passing through us. It will always be there. To try Cope before getting a key, you can start on our router; your conversations then pass through it until you add your own key. A reminder that arrives while no app is open, or a link that connects you to someone you've invited, goes through a small relay that passes only what your devices have encrypted and keeps nothing it could read, run by us or by you. A phone call that reaches you needs a server; that comes as one we run, and you can always take your data and leave.
What it will not do
It won't decide for you where the choice is yours. It won't flatten a real disagreement into a safe middle. It won't change your record without asking. It won't go looking for problems you didn't ask it to find. It won't take sides between people sharing an issue, or tell one of them what the other really means. It won't call you to fill a quota. And it won't pretend to be something it isn't: it isn't a therapist, and today it has no safety layer at all.
How we keep it honest
Cope rests on a bet: that a room of opinionated voices, run by a moderator, with a record you own, helps a person more than one capable model on its own. The strongest competitor is a good general assistant and a decent prompt, and if Cope can't beat it, the structure isn't earning its keep. So we test the bet in the open, and each claim we make names its mechanism and its limit.
Yours to change
The method is plain text: which voices sit in the room, and how a kind of problem is worked through. You can choose the voices, add your own and your own ways of working, share them with others, and test your change in the same simulator we use, before you trust it.