The assistant

When the assisted features are on, an assistant floats over every screen. It is there to save you taps — put this on the list, make that a to-do, read this receipt — and to answer questions about the app itself. It is never in charge of anything.

Assisted features

The assistant, receipt scanning, pantry photos and reading text off a photo are the assisted features. They are switched on per deployment. Without them the app runs entirely on its own arithmetic and what you type, and nothing else about it changes.

What it can do

• Put something on a shopping list. "Add oat milk to the grocery list."
• Add a to-do, with details. "Remind me to call the vet about Biscuit's booster, the number is on the vet note."
• Start a note. "Start a note called Kitchen plan." A chip under its reply opens the note it made.
• File either in a group. It knows the household's groups by their path, "Kitchen › Renovation", so "make a note in Kitchen › Renovation about the tiles" lands there. Say nothing about where, and it goes under Personal.
• Add a fact to a to-do that already exists. "The plumber said Tuesday — add that to the boiler to-do."
• Rewrite the note you are reading. While a note is open, "tidy this up" or "add a section for costs" changes that note.
• Answer anything else. A how-to, a recommendation, something in the world — it answers directly, searching the web when the answer needs it, and does not treat every question as one about your notes.
• Explain the app. "How do I make a to-do from a note?" is answered from the same text this guide is written from.

What it adds lands while it is still writing its reply, so a note or to-do is on its shelf by the time you have read that it is.

What it will not do

It cannot remove, rename, complete or check anything off. Ask, and it says so and points at the row itself. That is by design: the things that change your data for good are always your own tap.

It cannot make, edit or find new images.

What it knows

While you are talking to it, the assistant is shown:

• the household's lists, open to-dos, note titles and questions from inside the look-back window (ninety days unless changed in Settings);
• the full text of the note you are reading, while one is open;
• other notes on request, up to eight per turn — "read the boiler note" — and a read note lists its photos;
• who is typing, and the @handle the household writes for you, once you have said This is me. Otherwise it knows only that you are a member.

Photos

The photo button beside the message box attaches photos to a message. Its first tile takes one with the camera or picks one from the phone's library, and while a note is open, that note's photos are offered beside it — three at most per message, and the assistant is told which came from where.

It can show one of a note's photos under its reply. The photo opens its note when tapped.

Two photo jobs have their own buttons and do not need the assistant at all:

• Scan a receipt and photograph a pantry shelf, from the Lists home. See Lists and regulars.
• Read text on a note's photo. See Notes.

Allowance

Each account has an allowance for the assisted features. Settings → Assistant usage shows two meters — today and this month — and when each comes back: daily at midnight UTC, monthly on the 1st. When either is used up, the assisted features pause and everything else keeps working.

If an assisted feature could not be reached, the Service list in Settings records it, so a quiet failure is never a mystery.