Understanding cannot be received.
It has to be built.
Most learning tools feed you answers to absorb passively, then lock your knowledge inside a platform you don't own. Nesso lets you build your graph instead, and challenges you to reinforce how concepts relate.
Know how, not just what.
You build it
You construct your own knowledge structure: a typed concept graph that reflects how you understand, not just what you have read. Every edge forces a choice, causes or enables, subtype-of or instance-of. That choice is where understanding forms.
You remember it
A graph you build once and forget is just a diagram. Every concept carries spaced-repetition state, so Nesso surfaces each one right before you would forget it. Rate how the recall went and the schedule adapts, powered by the FSRS algorithm.
Open infrastructure
Nesso ships as modular open-source components: the app, the graph vocabulary, the MCP server. Anyone can adopt, extend, or fork them. The technical work should improve the open learning ecosystem, even for people who never use the application.
Private by architecture
Your cognitive graph reveals how you reason, where you struggle, how your understanding evolves. Nesso keeps it on your device with local-first storage and no account. Your data stays where you put it.
Then Socrates questions it
Layered on top of the graph, a Socratic AI reads your current selection and answers with questions, not summaries. Connect any OpenAI-compatible endpoint: a local model via Ollama, or a cloud provider. Point it at a capable model for a real conversation.
An unlabeled arrow records a connection without forcing you to commit to what kind. Novak’s concept mapping research shows that labeling each proposition, choosing between causes and enables, or subtype-of and instance-of, is what activates the elaborative processing that produces lasting understanding. The decision is the learning.
The user at the center.
The code open.
The knowledge yours.