What orma asks before it acts
orma does private things at once and asks before anything reaches another person or cannot be taken back. When it asks, it shows the whole thing, and the button names what will happen.
The three kinds of action
| What | For example | |
|---|---|---|
| At once, with Undo | Changes only you see | Saving a note, a task or a reminder. Adding, moving or renaming an event nobody else is on. |
| Asks first, until you allow it | Changes in your email account | Saving a draft into Gmail Drafts. Archiving, labelling, marking read or unread. |
| Asks every time | Anything another person receives, or that is hard to take back | Sending an email. Unsubscribing. Moving an email to the trash. Inviting people. Moving or renaming an event others are on. Answering an invitation. Cancelling an event. |
The last row cannot be switched to happen without asking. orma refuses the setting, and so does its database. Reading is on by default, and you can switch any kind of reading off.
Answering a request
- Send (or Cancel event, Unsubscribe) does exactly what you were shown. If anything changed since, like a guest added, the time moved or a new message on the thread, orma asks again.
- Edit changes a reply’s words before you send it.
- Not now puts it off. It waits in the island’s Needs you list and on Home under New, for up to 14 days.
When one request needs several yeses, orma puts them on one To confirm card, each line saying what it will do. Leave this out drops one, and Put back returns it. Don’t invite makes an event without emailing anyone. The button names what is left, like Add both tasks or Confirm all 3. Skip these drops them all. In the island, a card that sends or removes things shows Review all, which opens the conversation so you see each one in full first.
Five seconds to stop a send
After Send, the card reads “Sending to Liz Yang…” and counts down from five beside Stop sending. Stopping keeps your draft and asks you again. In the last moment the card reads Going out now, and the send can no longer be stopped.
If orma cannot tell whether an email went, it never sends it again. It tells you to check Sent in Gmail.
Changing what orma may do
Open Connectors › What the assistant can use. Each connected account has a page: Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, and GitHub or Linear once connected.
- orma can read: each kind of reading, On or Off.
- orma can do: each action, Without asking, Asks first or Off. Actions that reach another person or cannot be taken back offer only Asks first or Off.
- orma can’t: what orma never does with that account.
- Activity: when orma used the account, what it did and how it went, for 30 days. Never the content of your email or events.
You rarely need to go there first. When a request needs something that is off, orma asks in place: Allow, Connect or Sign in again, then carries on. Allow on anything that leaves orma means it asks each time. Always allow is offered only for changes in your accounts that reach no one else.
Good to know
- When a request involves something another person wrote, like an email, orma asks before changing anything outside orma, even calendar changes it would otherwise make at once.
- Cancelling an event you organised emails its guests, and the card says so. For someone else’s event, orma offers to decline instead.
- An email moved to the trash stays in Gmail’s trash for 30 days, and Undo brings it back.
- On a waiting row in Needs you or on Home, the ✕ (Not now) skips the request, and the row leaves the list.
- What I did, under an answer in the app, lists what orma read and changed. See Talking to orma.
Limits
- These rules cover what orma does itself. A connected AI app works within the access you gave it when you connected it. See AI apps.
- Undo reverses changes in orma, and in Gmail or Google Calendar for the actions that have an undo. A sent email cannot be recalled.
Docs last updated for release 0.5.1, an alpha.