Running in the background

Settings › Running in the background is everything Moe does on its own while you work: one pane, five tabs, Speaking up · Reminders · Keeping up · Learning about you · Activity. Some of it starts on: the glow, the ten-minute look at your calendar, notes and messages, thinking on its own, the calendar heads-up, and quiet hours. The rest is off until you switch it on, and each row says what it is doing right now. Turning anything off stops it straight away, and it stays off after a restart.

The amber glow#

Everything Moe wants to tell you on its own arrives one way: the notch glows amber and pulses. Hover and it opens a card: when it was for, what it says, and three things you can do. Play hears it, and lets Moe know you have. Reply opens a field on the card itself: type "I did", "not now", "remind me tomorrow" or "stop reminding me about that" and Moe acts on it, because it knows exactly which message you are answering. Dismiss drops it without reading it out; Moe is told quietly. Moe never speaks first. One thing waits at a time, the next stays in line until you have played or dropped this one, and nothing glows while Moe is talking or during a meeting; it shows the moment Moe is free again.

The same glow means a new version of Moe has downloaded and is ready to install. Tap the notch and the panel opens on A new version of Moe is ready. with Restart to update and Later; Later puts the glow out for a day. If a reminder is waiting too, it plays first. An update glows even with Let Moe bring things up on its own off, because an update is Moe looking after itself.

Speaking up#

Let Moe bring things up on its own is the one switch for Moe looking at your things on its own and saying so. It starts on. Off, nothing below runs and nothing glows; reminders you asked for still arrive, and so does a new version of Moe waiting to be installed.

Tell me before something in my calendar starts — Don't, or 2, 5, 10, 15, 30 or 60 minutes before; it starts at 10. That long before something in your calendar, you get one sentence, "Standup with Dan starts in 8 minutes — Room 4", with the amber glow, and forwarded to any chat you have ticked under Reminders. Nothing about it thinks: it reads the copy of your calendar Moe already keeps, works out what is starting, and says so, once per event. A meeting that moves is a new thing and is mentioned again. All-day events are never announced, and if the calendar copy is a day old Moe says nothing rather than warn you about a meeting that may since have been cancelled.

Under those, one row per connected thing: Tell me when something happens in Gmail, … in Messages, and so on. This is only "may Moe bring it up on its own". Switch WhatsApp off here and Moe still keeps your WhatsApp current, still answers about it when you ask, and still learns from it if you have said it may, but it never starts a sentence about it. A connection Moe has nothing to watch yet says so: Nothing to watch here yet. Tell Moe what you want to know about from Notion and it writes that down.

The half-hourly pass. With the switch on, every half hour Moe looks at the short brief it keeps of your day, calendar, notes, mail, messages, tasks, and only when the brief has changed asks its thinking part whether anything there matters: your next meeting, a missed call, a message from someone you know. Something worth a word takes the amber glow, one or two sentences; otherwise nothing is said and no thinking is spent. What it learns along the way, a fact about a person, a project, a preference, goes into the memory Moe carries into every conversation. This pass reads the brief and nothing else; no connection is touched, and it has no way to run anything on your Mac.

Open loops. When someone is waiting on you, a question, a request for a call or a decision, an invitation that needs an answer, a deadline you have not acknowledged, Moe does not just mention it once and forget. It keeps a short private note of the thing and comes back to it: about three hours later, then the next morning, then once a day. Each time, it checks your own sent mail and messages first; if you have dealt with it, the note is quietly dropped and you never hear about it again. If you have not, you get one sentence, and only about the most pressing thing, never a list. After four mentions, or a week, Moe lets it go by itself, and nothing can ask to be brought back sooner than an hour. Answer it, "done", "not now", "stop reminding me about that", and it closes, waits, or goes quiet for good. Newsletters, receipts, automated notifications and anything you were only cc'd on are never open loops; a loop is something a person is waiting on you for. For something in your calendar you may not have got ready for, Moe may offer to remind you nearer the time; say yes and it sets the reminder. Moe writes loops down during a conversation too, silently, as they come up: what you said you'd do, what Moe started and should check landed, and a price or a page you looked at that can change, which Moe checks every few minutes without thinking and speaks about only when it moves.

Watches are the same idea for one connection at a time, a data platform, a service, anything you have connected. A watch reads a fixed, declared set of things from that connection on a schedule (what exists, what changed, never rows or records), and when the answer changes asks whether the change is worth a word. The word names the kind of change and never quotes a name, an identifier, or anything the source marks as personal. Nothing ships pre-written: ask Moe to watch a connection and it sets one up; until then the connection's row says so. A watch costs nothing while it is switched off.

Reminders#

Anything you ask Moe to remind you about is said out loud and shown on the island when it comes due. This tab is where a reminder goes besides this Mac. On this Mac is always on. Under it, one row per chat app Moe can message you on, Telegram, WhatsApp, Slack and the rest: tick one and every reminder is sent there too, useful when this Mac is shut. A chat is offered once you have messaged Moe there at least once (that is how Moe knows which chat is yours); until then its row says Connected, but Moe has no chat of yours there yet — message Moe there once, then come back. The first chat app you set up is ticked for you the moment it is ready; a second one waits for you to tick it, and a chat you untick stays unticked. Before you have one, the tab says No chat app to reach you on yet — connect Telegram or WhatsApp under Connections and it appears here.

How reminders themselves behave, and the page that lists them, is Reminders.

Keeping up#

The switch over the whole tab is Look at my calendar, notes and messages every 10 minutes, on to start with, so Moe knows what is on today when you ask, without going to look first. Its row ends with Last looked: and when. Off, the rows under it are greyed and Moe reaches your things only when you ask it something.

Under it, Check Calendar every 10 minutes, Check Messages every 10 minutes, and so on, one per connected thing. Every ten minutes Moe copies a short window of that source into a small cache on this Mac, replaced each time, so "what's on" is instant: the next three days of your calendar; the last day of mail, Messages, WhatsApp and Telegram; the last month of Drive; every open reminder; and your most recent notes, those only while Notes is already open. Nothing is kept from it beyond the latest copy. Switch a source off and Moe reaches it only when you ask. The apps on this Mac start on; a service connected through Connections is kept ready only once you switch it on here, and then about once an hour, since each read there is a fresh sign-in to the service. Chrome shows here like the others but reads nothing until you have turned it on under Connections.

Before that copy is written, it is read through once for secrets: anything that looks like a password, a PIN, a one-time code, a card number, or the passcode in a meeting link is masked, and if that pass cannot run the copy is not written at all.

Learning about you#

Let Moe think on its own, on my AI plan — on. It lets Moe use your AI plan for work you did not just ask for: the half-hourly look over your mail, calendar and follow-ups, and the daily learning below. Off, none of that is spent. Moe still keeps its follow-up list, still checks a price or a page you asked it to watch (that costs nothing), and still delivers any reminder you set; it just does not think about any of it until you turn this back on. Moe also watches its own budget: on a Claude or ChatGPT plan, past half of your plan's short window (Claude's five-hour window, ChatGPT's session) the background passes wait, your own conversation comes first, and catch up when the window resets; the weekly window only pauses them past four fifths. With an API key there is no window to watch; you pay per token, and this switch is the control.

Quiet hours, 10 pm to 8 am — on. What Moe brings up on its own waits for the morning before it reaches your phone; the notch still gets it, silently, and a reminder you set yourself goes when you said. Moe uses this Mac's own clock and time zone, so it follows you when you travel, and if it has no fresh reading of your zone (the Mac has been off for a day) it holds nothing rather than guess.

Once a day, read back over what I've allowed and note what it learns — the daily pass. Off until you say yes, in the welcome or here. Only the things you have said yes to below; it keeps a short list of what it works out, who matters to you, what you're working on, on this Mac, in plain writing you can read and change under Memory. Under the switch, a quieter line says what the pass did last time, Last daily pass, 14 Sep: read Gmail, Calendar, or that it didn't run and why: the switch was off, Let Moe think on its own was off, or your plan was nearly used up, in which case it tries again the next day.

Then one row per connected thing: Read Gmail back and learn about me, and its like. The first time you say yes to a source, Moe reads back over it once, a year for most things, three months for browsing, and keeps what it works out as facts with where each came from and when. After that it catches up at a pace that suits the thing: daily for mail and messages, weekly for notes and wikis, monthly for the shape of a database, never for a docs search. Each row says so, Reads your mail once, going back as far as it can, then catches up every day, with when it last read. A source you say no to is skipped and the others carry on. For a service connected through Connections, the pass works out for itself what is safe to read: what accounts, projects and structure exist, never rows, messages, documents or anyone's personal data, and never anything that writes; a row says whether Moe worked that out from what the connection offers or you set it yourself.

Keep what it learns as Moe's memory — off. On, what the pass works out becomes part of the memory Moe carries into every conversation, not only a list you can review under Memory. Off, the list is kept and Moe's memory is left alone. See what Moe knows at the foot of the tab opens Memory.

Activity (the tab)#

What has been running: one row per background job over the last seven days, Speaking up, Learning about you, Calendar heads-up, Watching Notion, with what it did last time (Looked, and there was nothing new to say. / Ran, and had something to do. / The last run didn't finish. Moe will try again on its next turn.), how often it ran and how many of those failed, what it cost in tokens where anything was charged, and on, off or needs a look at the end. A plan you subscribe to has no separate charge, so those lines show the work rather than a price; a key you pay per use is priced from published rates, which is an estimate and not your bill. The fuller record, conversations included, is Activity.

When something Moe runs goes wrong#

Nothing technical is ever put in front of you. Moe runs a handful of jobs in the background, and when one of them does not finish, that is Moe's own plumbing, not news for you. It never takes the amber glow and it is never spoken. Where it does show is here: the job that had trouble reads needs a look, with a plain line saying its last run did not finish and Moe will try again. If something Moe was watching for you genuinely needs you, a connection that has stopped working, an inbox it can no longer read, Moe tells you about it in its own words: what it means for you and what it is doing about it, never an error message.

A job that could not do its work says so — it is never "done". When a scheduled job you asked for runs into something it cannot get past — the browser not signed in where it should be, a login or verification code needed, a page that is not what it expected — it stops, and the report saying why reaches you the way that job's results do: in the chat, on the card under the glow, or wherever you asked for it. The job shows as blocked with that reason, never as having run fine. A job that found nothing new keeps quiet as before; a job that could not look does not.

Jobs you set up yourself run on the same brain your conversation uses. Moe's own background checks stay on the cheapest model your plan offers (Settings › Usage says which); a job that acts in your name — posts, follows, books, replies — is not one of those, and gets the brain you chose.

Answering something Moe started#

Anything Moe says on its own, a reminder, a follow-up, a heads-up before a meeting, you can answer in a word, wherever it reached you: the card under the amber glow on this Mac, or Telegram, WhatsApp or any other chat you have picked. "I did." "Not now." "Remind me tomorrow." "Stop reminding me about that." Moe knows which of its own messages you are answering and acts on it, and acting on it never brings up a permission dialog, because changing its own reminders is Moe's own business.

• Dealt with — "I did", "done", "sorted". Moe drops the follow-up and never mentions it again.
• Later — "not now", "remind me tomorrow", "give me a couple of days". Moe moves it and says nothing until then. Deferring does not use up one of the four times Moe will ever mention something.
• Stop — "don't remind me about that any more". Moe drops it and will not raise it again, even if the thing that started it is still sitting unanswered in your mail. Ask for it back and it can come back.
• A reminder you set yourself is a schedule rather than a follow-up, so the same words change the schedule: Moe pauses it, deletes it, or moves it to the time you asked for. Moe's own background messages have no schedule of yours behind them, so if you want that kind of message to stop, Moe points you at the switch on this pane rather than quietly deleting the job the rest of them come from.

It only works on the message you have not answered yet, and only for about half a day: a short reply the next morning is a new subject. In a group chat nothing is attached at all; Moe's own messages go to your private chat.