---
title: Principles — Socrates
description: The principles we hold to.
canonical: https://topodrive.top/principles
last-updated: 2026-08-22
---

# Principles — Socrates

> The principles we hold to.

These principles guide the trade-offs we make while building Socrates. They are written in plain language and updated when our view changes.

## 1. Questions over performance

We design for intellectual honesty: it should be safe to begin with an incomplete thought. Our interface rewards the next question you can articulate, not the longest possible output.

## 2. Context over novelty

A useful tutor remembers the path into a question instead of treating every prompt as an isolated event. Your map, your recall queue, and your earlier attempts all stay visible.

## 3. Practice over consumption

Understanding grows through retrieval, explanation, and revision — not through a larger pile of output. We surface the parts that need your own attempt.

## 4. Clarity over spectacle

We make deliberate choices about tone, pacing, and interface so the ideas have room to breathe. Animation is gentle, language is plain, and the page knows when to be quiet.

## 5. Care with confidence

When the tutor is uncertain, it says so plainly. We never use a fluent sentence to paper over an honest gap in the model's knowledge.

## 6. Your thinking, your data

Conversations are private. We do not train on them. You can export or delete every session from the account page, and our privacy notice is written to be readable.

## How we hold to these principles

- We say no to feature requests that would push the tutor toward longer answers at the cost of deeper engagement.
- We say no to telemetry that would let us correlate a session with an outcome if the user has not opted in.
- We say yes to partnerships that share our view of what learning looks like.