ben merrill.
Sparky: a small orange flame wearing goggles

Sparky AI

A personal assistant that lives on a computer in my house. One conversation, a memory I can read, and a trail of everything it did.

Sparky's home screen: a morning brief, a reminder, and a research report that came back from the workshop, each on its own card

The trail

If there's no receipt, it didn't happen.

Everything Sparky does leaves a line in the conversation: the command that ran, the memory that got saved, the reminder that got set.

Things it changed are bright. Things it only looked at stay grey. Anything that would change something outside the conversation waits for a tap first.

A conversation with small receipt lines under the replies: a weather check, a saved memory, a reminder that was set

Jobs

Briefs, watches and reminders, in plain words.

"Every morning at 8, three things in tech." "Tell me when the tour dates go on sale." "Remind me Saturday." Each one is a job, made by saying it.

Results land at home as cards. A reminder glows until it's been seen, old ones fold away, and finished ones clear themselves after a week.

The Jobs panel listing a daily brief, a watch, a weekly meal plan and two reminders

Memory

A memory you can read, fix and take back.

Sparky keeps a short list of what it knows, in plain sentences. Every one can be edited or forgotten.

Each night it tidies that list and shows its work: what it updated, what it removed, why, and a one-tap way to put anything back.

The memory panel: last night's four changes as tagged rows, then the saved facts with Edit and Forget

Side threads

Take it to the side.

Home is for life, errands and quick questions. When an idea needs room, it gets its own thread to spitball in, and home carries on undisturbed.

Memory is shared across all of them, so nothing has to be explained twice.

A side thread called Garage Workbench Plan, with the thread list on the left

In your pocket

The same Sparky on the phone, and out loud.

The iPhone app is the same home, plus a voice mode built for walking: AirPods in, phone locked, squeeze to pause.

Sparky on a phone showing a reminder card and a report card
Cards at home
The phone menu: Sparky's home row, Jobs, Memory and side threads
One swipe for the menu
The voice screen: Sparky's face above the word Listening
Voice, with the phone locked

Small on purpose.

It lives at home

The model, the conversation and the memory all sit on one box in my house. There's no account and no cloud copy.

It asks first

Looking is free. Anything that sends, moves or changes something waits for a yes, and the yes is on the record.

It hands off real work

Research and builds go to a workshop of models next door. The result comes home as a card, and Sparky reads it first.

No settings

No modes, dashboards or pickers. New abilities arrive as small scripts, and the app stays readable in one sitting.

Nothing to keep track of

It never leaves a list for me to maintain. If something needs remembering, that's its job.

Honest about gaps

When it can't do something, or only read part of something, it says so plainly.