Your First Smart Match Session
Smart Match is Hokai's conversational recommendation engine. You describe your situation; Hok (your AI strategy officer) asks follow-up questions and returns a Strategy Brief plus a ranked stack of tools. This guide walks you through your first session.
Where to Find Smart Match
Click Smart Match in the sidebar (sparkles icon) or go to /hub/smart-match. It is also in the bottom tab bar on mobile under Match.
What Happens When You Start
You land in the Briefing phase. Hok introduces itself as "Your Intelligence Officer" and asks you to describe your needs. You can:
- Type — Describe what you need in your own words. Examples: "I need AI tools for B2B sales automation" or "Looking for image generation under $50/mo."
- Use Quick Start cards — Click a card (AI Coding Stack, Marketing Stack, Audit My AI Spend) to auto-fill a prompt and submit.
The input box cycles through example prompts. Use them as inspiration or replace with your own.
The Conversation Flow
After your first message, Hok may ask follow-up questions. Up to 5 turns of conversation. Hok asks one question at a time to clarify:
- Budget — Under $50/mo, $50–200/mo, $200–500/mo, Enterprise
- Scale — Solo, team, enterprise
- Role — Developer, marketer, sales, designer
- Use case — Automation, open-source, API-first, no-code
You can type a reply or click option chips when Hok offers them (e.g., "Under $50/mo", "$50–200/mo"). Context pills appear as you chat — budget, role, team size — so you see what Hok has inferred.
After enough context, or at turn 5, Hok returns your results.
What the Output Looks Like
Dossier phase — You see:
- Strategy Brief — A 2-sentence summary of your situation and why these tools fit. Copy it with the Copy button.
- Insights — Short tags (e.g., Budget-optimized, API-first, Developer-focused).
- Ranked stack — Tool cards in order. Each shows: name, logo, vendor, pricing, fit score (0–100), and a one-sentence reason.
- Cost estimate — Total monthly cost range for the stack.
What You Can Do With Results
- Add to My Stack — Click "Add to Stack" on a tool card. It goes into >My Stack.
- View tool profile — Click the tool name or "View" to open the full >tool profile in the directory.
- Copy briefing — Copy the full Strategy Brief and stack to clipboard for sharing or notes.
- Start over — Click "New Session" to run again with different context.
Tips for Better Results
- Be specific — "AI for coding" is okay; "AI for code completion and PR review, solo dev, $50/mo" is better.
- Answer follow-ups — If Hok asks about budget or role, answer. It improves the stack.
- Use option chips — When offered, they speed things up and ensure clear context.
