Getting started
Your first 15 minutes
A quick walkthrough from sign-up to your first pattern on the study map — no jargon, just the steps.
1. Create a free account
Visit app.algomentor.me and sign up with email or Google. There is no paid tier — the platform is free to use, with a daily limit on AI tutor questions unless you add your own API key (see AI tutor).
2. Open your study map
After sign-in you land on the Study Map— a visual graph of interview patterns. Each box is a topic (e.g. Arrays & Strings, Hash Maps, Sliding Window). Lines show prerequisites: you unlock a topic after you understand the ones above it.
- Locked — prerequisites not finished yet
- Ready — you can start studying
- Studying — in progress
- Done — mastered
3. Use Focus view
By default, Focus view shows your recommended next topic plus its neighbors — so the map is not overwhelming on day one. Toggle to Full map when you want to see every pattern at once. Scroll the mouse wheel to zoom; drag the background to pan.
4. Open a pattern
Click any unlocked node. A detail panel opens with:
- A link to the community markdown notes on GitHub
- Practice problems with verification links
- Progress toward mastery (solve N problems to mark the topic done)
- A button to open the AI tutor for that specific pattern
5. Read, practice, ask
- Read the linked notes — templates and Big-O intuition first.
- Try the suggested LeetCode problems.
- If stuck, open the tutor and ask for a hint (not the full solution).
- Mark problems as verified when you solve them. After enough solves, mark the pattern mastered to unlock what comes next.