Show HN: Cogilo – Cognitive Mirror in Google Docs
I built a Google Docs Add-on that analyzes your writing to reveal your thinking patterns.
I like writing. For me, its purpose has always been clarifying ideas. Writing not only sorts your thinking - it improves thinking.
In the age of LLMs, however, people use them for generating texts. They got it the wrong way around.
Writing is for solidifying your narratives. It’s for yourself.
Many have discussed essay writing. Most recently and famously, in this HN thread on the MIT paper on cognitive debt (https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872). PG had a nice essay about good writing (https://paulgraham.com/goodwriting.html).
Hence, I built a simple Google Docs Add-on, Cogilo (https://cogilo.me), that puts the writer’s thoughts at the center.
Cogilo analyzes text sections for four cognitive markers. It reflects how much you suffer from analysis paralysis, information overload, and uncertainty in your essay. And it shows where you are in a flow state.
Here’s a demo of Cogilo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOUZ2c0Rtjw
People can try it out on the Marketplace (https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/cogilo/31975274...), no sign-up.
You get reflected if your text sounds incoherent or circles too often around established concepts, with Cogilo marking passages where your thinking can be improved the most. Opus 4 then powers rewrite suggestions in your own writing style, incorporating feedback, to convey the same meaning, but more nuanced. They get inserted, and you can compare new and old, and modify.
Ultimately, the goal is that people automatically reflect their thinking processes and enhance them over time through Cogilo.
My team uses it for deep writing sessions, so it might be useful for you. It has helped us reason out concepts - and become better at reasoning itself.
Cogilo follows some personal principles on Writing & LLMs, maybe you’d like to critique them: https://cogilo.me/blog/cogilo Happy to hear about views on LLMs as an analytical tool first!
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