---
title: "What is Lookio"
description: "Lookio turns your documents into assistants that answer from them, with sources, in the app, over the API, from a terminal or inside an AI client."
canonical: "https://lookio.app/docs/get-started/overview"
updated: "2026-10-24"
---

# What is Lookio

Lookio is a retrieval platform. You put your knowledge in, and assistants answer questions from it.

```mermaid
flowchart LR
  R[Resources: texts, files, web pages, websites] --> A[Assistants]
  A --> Q[Answers with sources]
```

An answer is written only from your resources. It cites the passages it used, so you can check each claim. When the resources hold no answer, the assistant says so, and the question is charged like any other.

## What you can add

- **Text.** Paste a procedure, an FAQ or notes. Markdown headings become the sections an answer cites.
- **Files.** PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, CSV, images, Markdown and more. See [File formats](/docs/platform/file-formats).
- **A web page.** One public address, including pages built with JavaScript.
- **A website.** A whole site or one section of it, kept in sync every week. See [Websites](/docs/platform/websites).

## What an assistant is

An assistant has a name, a context (what it is and who it talks to), answer guidelines (language, length, format) and a choice of what it reads: every resource, a hand-picked list, or every resource carrying a tag. See [Assistants](/docs/platform/assistants).

## Where you use it

| Interface                          | Use it for                                                              |
| ---------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Web app**                        | Add resources, build assistants, chat, manage the team and the credits. |
| **[REST API](/docs/api/overview)** | Call an assistant from your own product or an automation tool.          |
| **[CLI](/docs/cli/overview)**      | Scripts, CI jobs and coding agents.                                     |
| **[MCP](/docs/mcp/overview)**      | Let Claude, Cursor or ChatGPT read and manage your workspace.           |

The app, the API, the CLI and MCP share one service layer. A permission refused in the app is refused everywhere.

## What it costs

Importing a resource is free, and so is everything that reads or edits your workspace. Asking an assistant a question is the only action that spends credits: 10, 30 or 80 credits per answer, depending on the query mode, even when nothing is found. See [Core concepts](/docs/get-started/concepts#query-modes) and [Credits and plans](/docs/platform/credits-and-plans).

**Ask your first question**

It takes a few minutes, from the app or with curl.

[Quickstart](/docs/get-started/quickstart)

[Core concepts](/docs/get-started/concepts)