Transform ideas into action through Socratic dialogue.
midWife is an LLM-powered planning tool that uses the Socratic Method to help users think through complex, open-ended decisions. Rather than generating a complete plan upfront, it asks focused questions that drive the growth of a navigable Discourse Tree — then synthesises the tree into an actionable Plan.
The name is a tribute to Plato's concept of maieutics: just as a midwife helps give birth to children, Socrates described his method as helping others give birth to wisdom. midWife plays the same role — not supplying answers, but drawing them out.
- Discourse Tree — your planning objective (Thesis) sits at the centre of a radial node-link diagram; AI-generated Aspects branch outward as you explore
- 9 Planning Modes — Logistics, Brainstorm, Creative, Problem-Solving, Decision, Research, Reflect, Set Goals, Learn — each with a distinct questioning strategy
- Interview Flow — one-at-a-time Socratic questions with suggestion chips, free-text answers, and an optional per-node chat assistant
- Navigator Pane — structured list view with a Focus Node for deep-diving into subtrees; supports add, edit, move, delete, and AI-powered Explore
- Plan Pane — a synthesised Markdown plan derived from the full discourse; edits are proposed as a diff preview that you accept or reject
- Mixed-initiative — every significant action can be initiated by either the user or the AI
- Persistent sessions — up to 20 sessions stored locally, fully resumable
Interview Flow
Plan Refinement
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Frontend | React 19, Vite, ReactFlow, Dagre |
| Backend | FastAPI, Uvicorn |
| Primary LLM | Claude Haiku 4.5 (Anthropic) |
| Fallback LLM | Gemini 2.0 / 2.5 Flash (Google) |
- Python 3.13+
- Node.js 18+
- An Anthropic API key
- A Google Gemini API key
1. Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/adityashukzy/midwife.git
cd midwife2. Configure environment variables
cp .env.example .env
# Open .env and fill in your ANTHROPIC_API_KEY and GEMINI_API_KEY3. Start the backend
pip install -e .
uvicorn backend.main:app --reload4. Start the frontend (new terminal)
cd frontend
npm install
npm run devOpen http://localhost:5173.
A full system paper is available at docs/project_report/midwife.pdf.
midWife is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 for open and non-commercial use — see LICENSE for details.
For commercial licensing enquiries, contact adshukla@cs.toronto.edu.