The Long Commute
Talk through your idea on the drive.Find it again tomorrow.
You worked it out with your AI last Tuesday. Now try to find it. RiffWrite gives your assistant a notebook it keeps for you — every decision, every draft, where you left off — so nothing you say out loud gets lost.
One hour at a computer to set up, with your assistant walking you through it. After that, it’s the phone on voice-mode.
The problem
You can’t find it.
You had a good conversation with your AI last week. A real one — the idea, the numbers, what you decided. Now find it.
Scroll. Search. Open the project. It’s in there somewhere, under forty other chats that all start the same way. So you explain it again from the beginning. And again next week.
That isn’t you being disorganised. Chat was built to talk, not to keep. Claude, ChatGPT, Grok — they all do it. Even inside a project.
RiffWrite fixes one thing. It gives your assistant a notebook, and makes it write in it.
Every decision, every draft and the place you stopped go into one place you own. The next conversation reads it first. Say “where were we?” and it knows. Ask “what did we decide about pricing?” and it finds it.
You set it up once, at a desk. After that it lives where you do: out loud, into the phone in the cupholder, in voice mode, with your hands where they belong. If that is not how you work, this is the wrong folder.
Here’s the part nobody tells you. Leave your computer on at home. Your phone reaches it from the car: the notebook, the files, everything you started at the desk. You talk on the drive, and it’s filed before you park.
What you actually get
This is the product. Not a picture of the product.
Illustrative exchange
The morning commute
Week three of the idea. You open voice mode and start talking.
You say, in the car
Back to the tutoring idea. We never settled whether I charge by the session or by the month. Where did we leave it?
Shackleton — Chief of Staff
Three conversations ago you leaned monthly — parents hate counting sessions. Two things were still open: the price, and what happens when a child misses a week.
See the rest of the conversation
Hooke — Critical Review
Monthly only works if you can promise the same slot every week. Last time you said you can’t until January. That’s the real problem, not the price.
Shackleton
One question, and it’s yours: by the session until January, then monthly? The rest of the plan follows from that answer.
You say
By the session till January. OK — wrap it up.
Shackleton
Noted: by the session until January, monthly after. Still open: what happens when a child misses a week. Next time, we start there.
The afternoon commute
A brand-new chat, voice mode again. No recap.
You say, in a new chat on the way home
Where are we on tutoring?
Shackleton — Chief of Staff
Pricing is settled: by the session until January, monthly after. One thing open — what happens when a child misses a week.
Hooke — Critical Review
If every missed week is refunded, the monthly price you just chose stops working in January. Decide it now.
You say
Charge it, unless they cancel the day before.
Cook — Technical Lead
Added to the plan, with a one-line policy you can send to parents.
Shackleton
Nothing open on tutoring. Note written.
Same team. New chat. It already knew where you left off.
The proof
You’re standing in it.
This website was built with the system RiffWrite is cut from. So was every Note on it, and all forty chapters of the three books written in 2026 — the fastest book just under three weeks. One person, a small publishing house, most of it talked through on the drive and finished at a desk.
The target is one book a week. We’re not there yet. When we are, this line will say so.
What you get
A few agents. One notebook. $25.
$50$25
- Not technical? Good.Setup is one sitting at a computer. Your assistant walks you through every click, in plain words. After that, it’s the phone on voice-mode.
- Thirty days, no questions.If it doesn’t earn its $25, tell us and you get it back.
That is the whole bill, beside whatever your assistant already costs you — for most people nothing, or twenty-odd dollars a month. No platform, no course. Worst case, you come out fluent at directing AI work, which your day job is about to start paying for.
See a sample file
riffwrite › rules › wrap-it-up.md · plain text
This is the file that means you never lose the thread. You say two words at the end. Tomorrow you say three, and it picks up where you stopped.
# Wrap it up When I say "wrap it up", write a note in my notebook before we stop. The note has five lines, in plain words: - Decided: what we settled, and why, in one sentence each. - Still open: what we did not settle. - Next: the one thing I do next. - Stopped at: the exact place we left off. - Lessons: look back over the whole session. Anything you got wrong, write down with the rule that stops it happening again. Date it. Name it after the idea, not the chat. Save it. When I start a new conversation, read my latest notes first, and every lesson. Don't make the same mistake twice. If I say "where were we?", answer from the note. Don't make me explain it again. Never write down a decision I didn't make.
That is one file of eleven, whole. Try it tonight. On its own it writes a good note, and the note stays in that one chat. In the kit, the ten work together:
- Wrap it up — writes the note. You’ve just read it.
- The notebook — where every note lives, so any new chat, on any device, can find it.
- Setup — your assistant builds the notebook with you, one click at a time.
- Shackleton — reads the notebook first and hands you the one next step.
- Hooke — finds the hole in the idea before anyone else does.
- Cook — turns what you decided into something written.
- When you need me — one question at a time, never ten.
- Carry it over — ask for something voice mode can’t do, and it’s ready to run when you reach a desk.
- Red Alert — say it, and a decision is kept for good.
- ClipFile — saves an article with your own take, so you find it next month.
- Import Memory — brings what another assistant knows about you.
One file writes a note. Eleven give you a team with a memory.
What’s in it
Eleven plain-text files that work with the assistant you already have, plus a guide with worked examples.
What you need: an AI assistant and a free GitHub account. GitHub sounds like it’s for programmers. You won’t be programming — it’s just where the notebook lives.
Setup happens once, at a computer. It starts with one sentence:
Talk me through what I need to do to set up my GitHub — and remember I’m not technical.
Happy to. Sit down at your computer — this part isn’t for the phone. I’ll keep it to plain steps, one at a time. First: open github.com and make a free account. Tell me when you’re on the sign-up page.
That’s the installing: you say what you want, and it walks you through each click.
The last step: link your phone to the computer, then leave the computer on. That’s the whole trick.
What it isn’t
Not software. Not a community. Not support — you run it yourself, at your own risk. It doesn’t find you customers, guarantee you a dollar, or work while you sleep. It’s a way of working, written down, that you have to actually use.
Thirty-day refund, no questions · your assistant does the setup with you
Purchases are not open yet in this preview.
Before you go further
This is probably not for you.
- You won’t give it one hour at a desk.Setup is one sitting at a computer. Skip it and nothing else works.
- You want someone to call when it breaks.There’s no help desk. Your assistant fixes it with you, or you get your $25 back.
- You want the answers handed to you.This helps you think. The thinking is still yours.
- You want to be told what to work on.This assumes you already have something worth thinking through.
- You shut the laptop every night.The phone needs something at home to reach. No computer left on means no notebook on the road.
- You’d rather type it than say it.After one setup at a desk, this runs on the phone, in voice mode, out loud.
If that is you, close the tab with our blessing. We’d rather lose you here than refund you later — though we will.
Still here? You’ve had the same idea in the shower nine times and never once had ninety uninterrupted minutes to test it. You are not short on capability. You are short on a way to turn forty minutes of talking into something that exists.
The free step
Take one file. Free.
Leave your email and we’ll send you one real file from the kit — not a brochure about it. Paste it into your assistant and try it. If it does nothing for you in ten minutes, you’ve learned that for free and we’re done.
“Just the email. That is all you need from her.”
“Take the phone number. And the birthday. And her mother’s maiden name. Then sell the lot of it to a man named Craig.”
One email with the file attached, then an occasional note when there’s a new one — every message carries an unsubscribe link. No phone number. The list is never sold or shared.
Before you go
Common Questions
What am I actually buying?
A folder of plain markdown files, worked examples and the written account of how they were made. You use the files with the assistant you already have, and it keeps your work in a free GitHub account.
Is this another subscription?
No. RiffWrite is a one-time purchase: $25 at the founding price, $50 after the beta. Your AI assistant may have its own separate charges.
Do I need to know how to code?
No. You need a free GitHub account, which is not the same thing. Your assistant sets it up with you, once, on a computer, and does the writing in it after that. You talk; it keeps the notes.