I built a personal assistant while walking through New York.

I built a personal assistant, and I started it the day after a trip to New York where I watched a CEO do something I couldn't stop thinking about.

The moment

I was in New York on vacation. We met with the CEO of a well-known company there. He was planning a trip, and he couldn't decide between two flights. He talked it through with us, and we gave him our recommendation. He decided. Then he just called his assistant, and it was done.

He didn't open a portal. He didn't fill anything in. He said what he wanted, and someone else handled it. I thought, holy smokes. That is what I want.

Building it while walking

The next day I started building it. I did it while I was walking around the city, just talking to Claude Code. I had a cloud agent working on it, so if I lost Wi-Fi it kept going. A year ago I don't think that would have been possible, and I think it's really cool that it is now.

Claude Code wrote all of it. I told it what I wanted.

What it is

It's a Telegram bot. I picked Telegram because it's a messaging app I don't really use, and it's very easy to put bots on it.

It's meant to act like a full personal assistant. Right now it can:

• sort email into piles like "needs you" and "handled"
• draft replies
• put events on my calendar and keep a task list
• send me a digest in the morning
• research things, like trips and gifts

I've started putting in information about family members, so it can help me recommend gifts. It's about 2,600 lines of Python, with 106 tests.

The Dan Martell playbook for executive assistants was a big inspiration. It told me a lot about what real assistants actually do, and I built from that.

It asks first

Right now it's pretty permission-oriented. It can't send an email, invite someone outside my circle, or recommend a purchase until I approve it in Telegram. The chat can add things to that waiting list, but it can't approve them. That's a button only I can press.

I think that's the right way to start. Soon I want it to be more independent as it learns about me.

Where it stands

I'll be honest about this part. It's not running right now. I had it on a Mac that I set up as a server, and that Mac died. It isn't broken, it just doesn't have a home at the moment. I'm setting up a full Mac server with an older Mac Mini, and I have a bunch of MacBooks I can use too. I'll write a post about how I set up that server and what I can do with it.

It was never connected to my real Gmail. I haven't tested it that much, and I don't know its full capabilities yet. I'm still finding out.

What's next

Next is turning the server back on and connecting Gmail. Then I'll run it for a week and see what happens. After that, maybe a phone number and more tools, so I can call it and talk to it. I'll write a bigger post once it's been running for a while.

Drafted and created with the help of AI.