A study coach that grades the why,
not just the letter.
CertForge is a self-hosted study tool for certification exams. It writes scenario questions like the real thing, grades the reasoning behind your answer, and tracks what keeps tripping you up so it can drill it until it fades. Everything runs on private, local models.
How the coaching works
Questions are AI-generated, then human-verified. The local model writes scenario questions; a person reviews them before they're marked trustworthy. Anything not yet checked is labelled unverified so you always know what you're looking at.
The coach grades your reasoning, not just your letter. After a question you can explain why you picked what you picked. The model critiques that reasoning and names the misconception behind a miss — even when you got the right answer for the wrong reason. Those misconceptions pile up into a ledger, and you can drill the ones that keep recurring and watch them fade.
The three practice modes
- Quick quiz
- A handful of questions with immediate feedback and coaching. Adaptive mode aims at your weak spots.
- Drill
- Spaced-repetition review of concepts you've missed — the stuff that's due to come back around.
- Mock exam
- Timed, sampled by domain weight, no feedback until you submit — the closest thing to the real exam, scored against the pass line.
More ways in
Lessons
Short, focused reads for each exam objective — the concept explained before you drill it, so practice reinforces something you've actually studied.
Lectures & Deep Dives
Audio micro-lectures for quick passes, plus long-form Deep Dive series for a topic end-to-end. Voiced by a local text-to-speech model — study with your eyes closed.
Voice tutor
Think out loud, hands-free. Talk through a scenario and the tutor talks back — the same reasoning-first coaching, in conversation.
Scoring you can trust
Mock exams report a scaled score (the exam's own point scale) next to the pass line, alongside the raw fraction you got right. Where the exam hasn't officially published a number, our estimate is flagged unofficial — we'd rather show our work than fake precision.
Privacy & your data
Nothing leaves the box for a cloud AI — questions, grading, lectures, and the voice tutor all run on local models. Your study progress — scores, sessions, mastery — is private to your account. Your written reasoning and the coach's critiques are used in aggregate to improve the questions and grading. The terms & data use page has the short version.
CertForge is a personal project, offered as-is for a private beta — you'll need an invite code, and you can install it as an app from your browser. Built for the CCA-F (Claude Certified Architect – Foundations) exam today; a new exam is just a new question pack, no code changes. Found a bad question? Flag it after answering — that goes straight to the owner.