TopCoder.App User Guide

Overview

TopCoder is a macOS app that gives you real-time AI help during interviews through an overlay that is invisible to screen sharing and screen recording. It listens to the conversation, lets you screenshot any problem, and streams an answer onto a window only you can see.

It runs in two modes:

The app is a background agent: no Dock icon, no Cmd-Tab entry, and it never shows up as “TopCoder” in Activity Monitor — it runs under a neutral, system-style name. You drive everything with global keyboard shortcuts.

Installation

Requirements: macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later, Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4).

1. Create an account at topcoder.app.
2. Download the Mac app and open the .dmg.
3. Drag the app onto the Applications folder (the installer shows you exactly where).
4. Launch it from Applications. The build is Apple-notarized, so it opens cleanly with no scary warnings.
5. Sign in with the same email and password you used on the website.
6. Grant the three permissions when prompted (see below).

Permissions

On first launch a short onboarding walks you through three macOS permissions. All three matter — TopCoder will tell you which are still missing and deep-link you straight to the right System Settings pane.

When the prompts appear: Accessibility and Microphone are requested during onboarding, right after you sign in. Screen Recording is too — and on recent macOS you may see a second prompt the first time the app captures the screen. Approve both during setup so nothing pops up mid-interview.

Your First Interview

1. Open TopCoder 2–3 minutes before your call. You will see a compact bar near the bottom of the screen.
2. Press Start. This begins a session — it uses one interview credit, or your free interview if you are eligible.
3. Join your video call and share your screen as normal. The overlay stays invisible to everyone else.
4. Check the mode badge at the top-left of the bar — it shows Behavioral or Technical. Press Cmd Shift B to switch if it is wrong.

Then it depends on the kind of interview:

Read the answer in the floating panel. Move it with Cmd + arrows, scroll sections with Option + arrows. End the session with Cmd Shift E when you are done.

Behavioral & Technical Modes

A badge at the top-left of the bar always shows which mode you are in. Toggle between them with Cmd Shift B.

Technical mode (default)

For coding, algorithms, and system design. Coding problems come back as two cards — a Naive and an Optimal solution — each with an approach script, working code, and complexity. System-design questions render inline with the standard sections. Pick the model with Cmd T; the active one is shown next to the badge. Quick is fast and right for most problems; switch to Reasoning for a genuinely hard algorithm or design question where you want more depth (it is slower).

Behavioral mode

For “tell me about a time…” and “how would you…” questions. TopCoder reconstructs the interviewer’s most recent spoken question from the live transcript and answers it as one tight, first-person script you can read aloud — grounded in the prep document you upload. A few things change automatically in this mode:

• If a session is running, switching to Behavioral starts listening automatically, so the interviewer’s question is always captured.
• It always uses a fast model so answers start streaming immediately — the Quick/Reasoning choice doesn’t apply here, and the model indicator simply reads Fast.
• Answers are a single, flowing script — no Naive/Optimal split, written to sound like you talking.

Solving Questions

There are three ways to give TopCoder a question, and you can combine them:

Screenshot the problem

Press Cmd G to attach the current screen (up to 5 screenshots for one question). Then press Cmd Q to solve — TopCoder reads the captured screen plus the conversation and streams an answer.

Use the conversation

If you are listening (Cmd J), just press Cmd Q with nothing typed — TopCoder answers the latest question it heard. In Behavioral mode this is the primary path.

Type a question

Press Cmd I to focus the input box (this works even in click-through mode), type your question, and press Cmd Q.

Follow-ups

On a code answer, refine without re-asking: Cmd D asks the AI to fix the code, Cmd E adds inline comments. Press Cmd R to clear the stack and start fresh.

Reading Answers

Answers stack as cards in a floating panel above the bar. One card is expanded at a time; the others collapse to a single line.

Code answers show a section list on the left and the focused section on the right. Behavioral and system-design answers render as a single readable block. Everything is Markdown-formatted; code answers come with a short “what to say” approach line so you can narrate as you type.

Behavioral Prep

Behavioral mode is only as good as the material it draws from. Upload one document of your real stories and background, and TopCoder grounds every behavioral answer in it.

Uploading

Open Settings → Behavioral prep → Upload document and pick a file. Supported formats: PDF, plain text (.txt/.md), and Word (.doc/.docx/.rtf), up to 5 MB. The text is extracted on your Mac — only the extracted text is sent to your account, never the raw file. You can Replace or Remove it anytime.

How it’s used

When a behavioral question comes in, TopCoder looks for a story in your document that matches. If it finds one, it answers from it — keeping your real numbers, names, and outcomes. If nothing matches directly, it builds an answer from the closest experience and background in your document, so it always sounds like you and never invents conflicting facts.

Live Transcription

Press Cmd J to start or stop listening. It only works during a session — pressing it before you start does nothing.

TopCoder captures two streams and labels them: your microphone as You, and the interviewer’s voice (via system audio) as Interviewer. The latest Interviewer line is what drives Solve and behavioral answers, so the AI always answers the most recent question rather than the whole conversation.

Settings

Open Settings from the bar before a session. It contains:

• Account — your name and email, plus Sign out.
• Output language — the language answers are written in.
• Code language — your preferred programming language for code answers.
• Model — Quick or Reasoning (Technical mode). Hidden in Behavioral mode, which always uses the fast model.
• Behavioral prep — upload, replace, or remove your prep document.
• App / Check for updates — shows your version and offers a one-click download when a newer build is available.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Every shortcut is global — it works whether or not TopCoder is the focused app.

Answering

Modes & audio

Navigating answers

Windows & visibility

Session

How Stealth Works

TopCoder is invisible to screen sharing and screen recording — Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex, CoderPad, HackerRank, CodeSignal, and any other capture tool. This is built on macOS window APIs, not a workaround: the window is simply excluded from capture.

• Invisible to capture — your shared screen and any recording never show the overlay.
• Click-through in session — during an interview your mouse passes through the overlay to the interview window, so there is no focus change for proctoring tools to detect. Everything is keyboard-driven.
• No Dock or switcher presence — it runs as a background agent.
• Hidden in Activity Monitor — it never appears as “TopCoder”; it runs under a neutral, system-style name.
• Keystrokes never reach the browser — TopCoder intercepts its shortcuts at the system level and swallows them, so the matched key presses are never delivered to the interview tab. A coding platform that listens for keystrokes can’t see or log them. Only the exact shortcut chord is caught — your normal typing passes straight through.

Interview Types

Coding & algorithms

Screenshot any LeetCode / HackerRank / CoderPad problem and get a naive and an optimal solution: working code in your chosen language, time and space complexity, and a line to say as you write it. Supported languages include Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Java, C++, C#, Go, Ruby, Swift, Kotlin, Rust, and SQL.

System design

Popular system-design questions are answered with the full structure — requirements, core entities, API, data model, architecture, deep dives, and trade-offs — rendered inline with a diagram where it helps.

Behavioral

Switch to Behavioral mode (Cmd Shift B) and TopCoder answers “tell me about a time…” questions from your uploaded prep — a natural, first-person script structured the way interviewers expect. See Behavioral Prep.

Plans & Pricing

• One credit is consumed when a session starts. Within that session you can ask freely — up to 2 hours or 80 AI requests (each Solve/Fix/Comments counts as one) — so you can’t run out mid-interview.
• New accounts get one free interview (a 10-minute session), no credit card required. You must verify your email first — check your inbox for the verification link, then it appears automatically in the app.
• Credits never roll into a subscription — you pay once and use them at your pace.
• All sales are final; see the refund policy for the rare exceptions, and the privacy policy for how your data is handled.

Referrals

Once you have purchased a plan you unlock a referral code. When a friend applies your code and makes their first purchase, they get +1 bonus interview and you earn credits. Codes can be regenerated anytime from the dashboard.

Web Dashboard

Manage everything at topcoder.app/dashboard:

• Overview — your plan, remaining interviews, and referral stats.
• Buy credits — purchase interview packs via Stripe.
• Referrals — copy your code, apply a friend’s, and track history.
• Usage history — past sessions with date, duration, and status.

Troubleshooting