A medical assistant that asks before it answers.
Puka works through a medical question the way a careful clinician would. It asks for the detail that changes the answer, answers in plain language, shows where the answer came from, and says clearly when you need a person.
I've had a headache for three days. Ibuprofen takes the edge off but it keeps coming back. Should I be worried?
Probably not an emergency, but a few things would change that answer. Two questions first:
- Did it start suddenly, like the worst headache of your life, or build up over hours?
- Any fever, stiff neck, vision changes, weakness, or confusion?
If none of those apply, a headache that builds over days, eases partly with ibuprofen, and keeps returning is most often a tension-type headache, sometimes kept going by the daily painkillers themselves. Regular sleep, fluids, and limiting painkillers to two or three days a week usually settles it within a couple of weeks.
Get seen today if it came on suddenly, is the worst headache you have had, or comes with fever, stiff neck, vision changes, weakness, or confusion.
Sources: NICE CG150, Headaches in over 12s. ICHD-3 classification.
How Puka answers
- It asks before it answers.
- Most medical questions arrive missing the one detail that changes the answer. Puka asks for it, briefly, instead of guessing around it.
- It shows its work.
- Every answer says where it came from: clinical guidelines, formularies, and primary studies, cited so you can check rather than simply trust.
- It knows its limits.
- Puka is plain about what cannot be judged from a message. When the right next step is a pharmacist, a clinician, or an emergency department, it says so first, not last.
What Puka is, and isn't
Puka is a reasoning assistant for medical questions. It is built on Claude, with medical grounding, guideline sources, and hand-off rules layered on top. It is meant for people with a question, and for the clinicians who answer them.
Puka is not a medical device, does not diagnose, and does not replace a clinician. Nothing it says is medical advice. If you think you are having an emergency, call your local emergency number.
Where it stands
Puka is in development. This is the honest state of it as of September 2026.
| Built | The reasoning core, built on Claude Opus with adaptive thinking. A command-line tool, a streaming API, and a web chat, all sharing that one core. |
|---|---|
| In progress | Medical grounding: guideline and formulary sources, a citation on every answer, and the rules for when to hand off to a person. |
| Next | Evaluation on real questions with clinicians, then a private beta for people on the early list. |
Join the early list
Early access opens in small groups. Tell us how you would use Puka, and we will invite you when there is a fit.