Cluely Documentation

The Cluely architecture relies on three main technical pillars to provide real-time AI assistance:

1. Overlay UI: An Electron-based transparent window that stays on top of all other applications.
2. Data Capture:
   • Clipboard Monitoring: Continuously listening for clipboard changes to trigger AI processing.
   • Screen Capture & OCR: Using native modules (like node-ffi or robotjs) to capture screen areas and libraries like Tesseract.js to perform Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on the captured images.
3. Backend Communication: Sending captured data (text, screenshots, or clipboard content) to an AI backend (such as OpenAI) via WebSockets or HTTP requests to receive processed suggestions.

If you need full control over the build toolchain (webpack, Babel, ESLint, etc.), you can run npm run eject.

Warning: This is a one-way operation. Once you eject, you cannot go back.

Ejecting removes the single build dependency and copies all configuration files and transitive dependencies directly into your project. While all other commands will still work, they will point to the newly copied scripts, and you will be responsible for managing the configuration.

To build an invisible or overlay-style application similar to Cluely, use Electron's BrowserWindow configuration. Setting transparent: true allows the window background to be invisible, showing only the rendered content. Setting alwaysOnTop: true ensures the window remains visible above all other applications. Other useful flags for this pattern include frame: false to remove window decorations, skipTaskbar: true to hide the app from the taskbar, and resizable: false to prevent user resizing.

const { BrowserWindow } = require('electron');

const win = new BrowserWindow({
  width: 800,
  height: 600,
  transparent: true,
  frame: false,
  alwaysOnTop: true,
  skipTaskbar: true,
  resizable: false,
  fullscreen: false,
  webPreferences: {
    nodeIntegration: true,
    contextIsolation: false,
  }
});
win.loadURL('file://' + __dirname + '/index.html');

Cluely supports two primary AI provider modes via environment variables in a .env file.

Google Gemini (Cloud-based)

Best for speed and accuracy for complex tasks. Requires an internet connection and an API key.

• Key: GEMINI_API_KEY

Ollama (Local/Private)

Recommended for privacy. Data never leaves your computer and it works offline. Requires Ollama to be installed and running (ollama serve).

• USE_OLLAMA: Set to true.
• OLLAMA_MODEL: The model name to use (e.g., llama3.2, codellama, mistral).
• OLLAMA_URL: The local endpoint (default: http://localhost:11434).

# Gemini Configuration
GEMINI_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

# Ollama Configuration
USE_OLLAMA=true
OLLAMA_MODEL=llama3.2
OLLAMA_URL=http://localhost:11434

The 'X' button on the window currently does not work. To close the application, use:

• Cmd + Q (macOS)
• Ctrl + Q (Windows/Linux)
• Or terminate the Interview Coder process via Activity Monitor (macOS) or Task Manager (Windows).

Port 5180 Conflicts

If the app fails to start, ensure port 5180 is not in use:

# Find processes using port 5180
lsof -i :5180

# Kill the process (replace [PID] with the actual ID)
kill [PID]

Sharp/Python Build Errors

If you see gyp ERR! find Python or Sharp errors, use prebuilt binaries:

rm -rf node_modules package-lock.json
SHARP_IGNORE_GLOBAL_LIBVIPS=1 npm install --ignore-scripts
npm rebuild sharp

Alternatively, install Python via brew install python3 (macOS).

General Reset

If installation fails, try a clean slate:

1. Delete node_modules folder.
2. Delete package-lock.json.
3. Run npm install.
4. Run npm start.

Use these global hotkeys to control the Cluely interface:

• Cmd/Ctrl + B: Toggle window visibility (hide/show).
• Cmd/Ctrl + H: Take a screenshot for AI analysis.
• Cmd/Enter: Get a solution from the AI.
• Cmd/Ctrl + Arrow Keys: Move the window position.