pievr

Telegram bot for technical interview preparation using flashcards and smart prioritized spaced repetition.

Overview

pievr is a personal Telegram bot designed to streamline technical interview preparation. Instead of standard rigid calendar intervals (like traditional spaced repetition apps), it uses a dynamic priority queue system based on recent performance and time elapsed.

Core Concepts & Architecture

1. Dynamic Priority System

• No Calendar Dates: Spaced repetition doesn't rely on strict dates.
• Priority Calculation: Priorities are calculated dynamically in Go code based on:
  • Time elapsed since the question was last asked (older unseen/unasked questions rise in priority).
  • Success streak (streak): successful answers decrease priority, while mistakes increase it sharply.
• New Questions Mix: Unseen questions (times_asked = 0) have no priority and are smoothly mixed into study sessions in a configurable proportion alongside prioritized review questions.

2. Flexible Tagging

• Questions support multiple tags (many-to-many relationship) to allow granular topic filtering and cross-cutting selections (e.g., combining go and concurrency).

3. LLM Integration (Gemini API)

• Configurable BaseURL: Configurable via environment or config file to support proxies or custom endpoints.
• Background Generation: Background workers passively generate questions in bulk (e.g., in JSON batches) to maintain a target buffer of questions.
• Self-Validation: When questions are generated, the LLM validates them by answering its own questions before they enter the active pool.
• Bot Interaction: The bot can operate as an AI assistant with tool-use capabilities to query the database, manage tags, and fetch questions.

4. Database Schema (SQLite)

Stored locally in storage/ (excluded via .gitignore):

• questions: Stores core content (type, question_text, payload as JSON, active, last_asked_at, streak, times_asked, times_correct, created_at).
• tags: Tag definitions (name).
• question_tags: Many-to-many mapping between questions and tags.

Project Structure

• cmd/ — Application entrypoints
• internal/ — Private application code (domain, services, storage, bot handlers)
• prompts/ — Prompt templates embedded via go:embed
• storage/ — SQLite database files and schemas
• docs/ — Documentation and architectural notes

Development Workflow

1. Sync with master before starting any new feature branch.
2. Implement features or fixes in dedicated feature branches (feature/... or fix/...).
3. Rebase against master before pushing.
4. Open a Pull Request for review and merge.