Show HN: OpenGnothia – Open-source AI therapy companion (BYOK)

2 points

4 months ago

Hey HN. I built this because I've been in therapy for years and noticed that a big part of what therapists do is ask the right questions at the right time. I wanted to see if an AI could serve as a daily self-reflection tool — not replacing therapy, but as a complement to it. Some design decisions and why:

Desktop-only, intentionally. I think therapy should feel like sitting down with your thoughts, not scrolling on your phone. The desktop constraint is a feature. BYOK (Bring Your Own Key). You use your own Claude API key. No backend, no data collection, no accounts. Your conversations never leave your machine. This felt non-negotiable for something dealing with mental health. Built with Claude Code. I work full-time as a team lead at an edtech company, so this was built in evenings and weekends, mostly through vibe coding sessions. I use it myself daily. 15–20 min sessions with Opus + extended thinking. After weeks of use, it picks up on patterns in how you think — recurring avoidance behaviors, cognitive distortions, etc.

The name comes from "Gnothi Seauton" (Know Thyself) — the inscription at the Temple of Delphi. There's no comparable open-source tool in this space. Every mental health AI app I found is closed-source and collects user data. I wanted to build the alternative I wish existed. Feedback welcome — especially on the approach, architecture, or if this is fundamentally a bad idea. Happy to discuss. GitHub: https://github.com/Lepuz-coder/opengnothia