TicoAI

May 16, 2026

Overview

Tico is a Windows desktop AI buddy that lives on the user's screen — a companion cursor that follows you around, listens to voice input, sees the screen via screenshots, and answers out loud while pointing at on-screen elements. Built for fluid multimodal interaction, it auto-detects language (PT-BR / EN), searches the web when needed, and runs natively on Windows with a custom WPF interface. The core value proposition: turn the desktop into a conversational workspace — ask Tico anything hands-free, and it sees, hears, and responds in real time. Website

Platform Modules

Buddy Cursor

Desktop companion built in WPF with spring physics, Bézier path animation, waveform visualization, and speech bubbles. Persistent on the taskbar with a custom Tico tray icon, bindable hotkey (default F8), and pause/resume TTS controls — without hiding the Windows taskbar.

Voice & Speech

End-to-end voice loop: audio capture with RMS gating, transcription via OpenAI Whisper (auto language detection), and spoken responses via OpenAI TTS with playback pause/resume.

Screen Awareness

Real-time screenshot capture and on-screen element parsing via OmniParser, plus a pointing system (v1 + v2) that lets Tico visually highlight UI elements while speaking about them.

AI Engine

Anthropic Claude integration with built-in web search (web_search_20250305, up to 3 searches per request), conversation history management, and multi-turn context streaming over SSE.

Web Platform

Next.js 16 marketing site with landing page, auth flow, dashboard, updates blog (markdown-based with likes and comments), legal pages, and dual-language i18n (~160 keys in PT-BR and EN). SSR via Supabase with Tailwind 4 styling.

Billing & Payments

Dual payment infrastructure: PIX via AbacatePay (BRL) and credit card via Stripe (USD). Three tiers (free / pro / unlimited) with usage tracking, idempotent webhooks, and Stripe Customer Portal for subscription management.

Auth & Identity

Supabase Auth with email verification, password reset, magic links, and JWT-based authorization on the proxy. Custom HTML email templates delivered via Resend SMTP.

Update System

Auto-update checker on startup, with installer artifacts and version.json served from Cloudflare R2.

Tech Stack

Desktop: C# .NET 8 (WPF), DPAPI for token storage Backend / Proxy: Cloudflare Workers (prod), Node.js (dev) Frontend: Next.js 16, React, Tailwind 4, TypeScript Auth & Database: Supabase (PostgreSQL, RLS, RPCs) AI: Anthropic Claude API (+ Web Search), OpenAI (Whisper + TTS) Payments: AbacatePay (PIX / BRL), Stripe (Card / USD) Email: Resend (custom SMTP) Storage / CDN: Cloudflare R2, Cloudflare DNS Infrastructure: Vercel, Cloudflare Workers, Supabase Pro Testing: xUnit, NSubstitute

What I Worked On

Built the entire WPF desktop app from scratch — state machine (CompanionManager), services layer (auth, audio capture, screen capture, pointing, hotkey, updates), and custom UI (buddy cursor with spring physics, overlay, settings, chat history with pause TTS)
Designed and shipped the Cloudflare Worker proxy with JWT validation, per-tier usage enforcement, SSE streaming from Claude, and routes for /chat, /transcribe, /tts, /usage
Built the full Next.js marketing site: landing page, login/register with email verification, dashboard, updates blog with likes and comments, legal pages, and full PT-BR / EN i18n
Implemented dual payment system — PIX via AbacatePay (webhook v1 + v2) and credit card via Stripe (4-event webhook handling), all idempotent via a webhook_events table
Designed the Supabase schema (profiles, usage, payments, feedback, webhook_events, post_likes, post_comments) with RLS policies and check_usage / increment_usage RPCs
Set up the custom transactional email pipeline via Resend SMTP with 6 personalized HTML templates (confirm signup, reset password, magic link, change email, invite, reauthentication)
Wrote 56 unit tests covering core domain logic, services, and integration boundaries (xUnit + NSubstitute)