Guides · Last updated 20 October 2026

Use Hintglass in a live interview

During the call, Hintglass, a macOS menu-bar app, answers only when you ask: hold right ⌥ while the interviewer finishes a question, let go, and the answer appears in the panel under your notch.

Start a session

Open your meeting app, such as Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams: the one picked in Settings → Meeting app. For Google Meet, pick the browser it runs in. Starting a session looks for the app by name and tells you if it isn’t open.
Choose Start session from the Hintglass menu in the menu bar. The menu reads Starting… meanwhile, then Stop session.
Check the panel under your notch: it shows the them and me meters, a clock from 0:00 and the word listening. If something isn’t ready, such as a connection that hasn’t passed its Test or a missing permission, the panel says what to fix instead.

Changes to the trigger, the language, the profile, the connection and search apply at the next session start, so make them before you start.

Get an answer

Hold right ⌥ (Right Option) while the interviewer finishes the question. Hintglass gets the transcript ready during the hold, so the first words arrive quickly.
Let go. The panel’s word goes from sending to answering as the answer streams in.
Read the first line, then the detail below it.

Hold the key alone. Pressing any other key or clicking during the hold cancels it, so typing with the Option key never sends anything, and neither does a quick tap.
A press with nothing new from the interviewer sends nothing, and leaves an answer that is still arriving alone.
One answer at a time: a newer press that sends replaces the answer still arriving.
A finished answer stays until your next answer or search replaces it, or you dismiss it. Nothing takes it off on a timer.

them me 12:41 answered

Token bucket per key, enforced at the edge

Each key gets a bucket that refills at its plan’s rate, checked before the request reaches the app. Over the limit it returns 429 with Retry-After.

An example answer to “How would you rate-limit a public API?”: the notch row on top, then the opening line and the detail.

Read the answer

Every answer opens with a line of four to eight words to start talking with, then detail only when it helps, all under 120 words. Knowledge questions get a direct answer, and no answer claims experience your profile doesn’t hold. An answer that was cut short ends with “…truncated”.

Answer a coding question

Bring the window with the coding question to the front. Hintglass reads the front window of the app in front, never one of its own: with its Settings in front, it reads the window behind.
Press ⌥⌘C (Option-Command-C). The panel’s word goes from reading code to answering code.
Read the code panel at the top right of that window’s screen: one plain line naming the approach, then the code, at most 40 lines.

The press sends a screenshot of that window with the conversation. Only that request, and its one retry, carries it.
The code panel stays until you dismiss it or a later code answer completes.
It needs a model that reads images. If the Test your connection passed found that yours doesn’t, or couldn’t tell, a press shows “Code mode unavailable — Settings → Connection.”

Look up a fact

Let the interviewer finish the question.
Press ⌥⌘F (Option-Command-F). The panel’s word goes from searching to answering search.
Read the one sentence, and the row under it that names its source’s site and title.

The interviewer’s latest words go, as they said them, to the search service you chose in Settings → Search, and up to three of its results go to your AI provider.
The source row comes from the search results, never from the answer’s text. It reads “no source cited” when the answer cites none.
Without a search service, a press shows “Search unavailable — Settings → Search.”

Cancel or dismiss

Press ⌥⌘. (Option-Command-Period). Each press does the first of these that applies:

It cancels a code or search answer that is still working.
It dismisses the code answer on screen.
It takes a finished answer off the panel under your notch.

It never cancels a plain answer that is still arriving. While there is something to act on, the Hintglass menu has the same action: Cancel search, Cancel code answer, Dismiss code answer or Dismiss answer.

End the session

Choose Stop session from the Hintglass menu. Stopping gives every shortcut back to other apps.

At launch, a free session shows its length in the menu while it runs and stops on its own when the time is up. Activating a licence in Settings → Licence during it lifts the limit, and the session runs on.

What the panel shows

The top row of the panel, the notch row, is there for the whole session:

them: five bars for the meeting app’s audio, the interviewer.
me: five bars for your microphone.
The clock: the time since the session started.
The word on the right: what the panel is doing, from the list below.

Flat bars mean no sound is arriving on that side. A label that dims is being reconnected; a label in orange and struck through is lost for the rest of the session. Hintglass troubleshooting covers a meter that stays flat.

listening: The session is running and nothing is on the panel: it is waiting for your press. A dismissed answer brings it back here.
sending: You let go, and the answer’s first word hasn’t arrived yet.
reading code searching: A code or search press is working: reading the screenshot, or running the search. It takes seconds, and a status row below may say what it is doing.
answering answering code answering search: The answer is arriving. A code answer arrives on the code panel, and the notch row follows it until it is complete.
answered search answered: The answer is complete. It stays until your next answer or search replaces it, or you dismiss it.
no answer no search answer: The press got no answer. A plain answer fails quietly: the panel dims. A failed search shows a short line saying what went wrong, and the menu has the reason.
problem: A message you need to read, at full strength whatever the panel’s opacity: the meeting audio was lost, a transcriber stopped, or every press would fail the same way, such as a rejected key, a missing model, a used-up quota, a search key the service refuses or a missing Screen & System Audio Recording grant. It says what to do.
idle working sending code sending search code answered no code answer: The app has these words too, but this version never shows them in the notch row: idle means no session, and the row is only there during one; code and search presses start at reading code or searching; and once a code answer is complete, the row goes back to the word for the panel under your notch.

The panel hangs just below the notch, on the display that has one, even when another display is your main one. That puts it right under the camera.
On a Mac without a notch, it sits just below the menu bar, at the top centre of your main display.
Who sees it. Only you. Hintglass is invisible on screen share and in screenshots: share your whole screen and they see your desktop, never your answers.
Opacity in Settings → Notch panel sets how solid the panel is. Messages you must read always show at full strength.
Wear headphones. Your microphone then hears only you, so Hintglass always knows which words are yours and which are the interviewer’s.

Hintglass shortcuts