How BYOA works
- Capture. Tap the record control on your Apple Watch (or record from iPhone), say the note, and get back to what you were doing.
- Transcription. BYOA uploads the audio, returns "accepted" right away, and transcribes in the background. Raw audio is deleted after transcription.
- Waiting. The transcript waits in the Waiting tab. Waiting notes are the only notes BYOA holds.
- Handled. Mark a note Handled yourself, or let a connected agent mark it handled. BYOA then deletes its copy of the note and its audio immediately. Handled notes cannot be recovered from BYOA.
You can use BYOA with no agent connected. Notes simply wait for you.
Account and devices
- Sign in with Apple only. There is no BYOA password and no email/password account.
- Pairing a Watch. Your iPhone creates a short device code; the Watch redeems it and gets its own device token, stored in the Watch Keychain.
- Remove a device. In the iPhone app, open Account and revoke the device. A revoked device can no longer upload or read notes.
- Delete your account. In Account, choose "Delete my account and data." This removes your notes, agents, devices, usage counters, feature requests, and Apple identity mapping. Handled notes are already deleted, so there is nothing to export.
Connecting an agent
In the Agents tab, add an agent and BYOA issues it a scoped key for the BYOA MCP endpoint:
https://mcp.byoa.me/mcp
The key can read waiting notes and mark them handled (notes:read, notes:ack). You see the real key exactly once; only a hash is stored. You can revoke an agent at any time, and you choose which connected agent receives new notes. Changing agents affects new notes only; notes already waiting stay where they are.
Honest limits. Connector choices create a BYOA-issued key for the BYOA MCP endpoint. They are not native logins inside those other products:
- Muse: the verified end-to-end MCP flow.
- ChatGPT / Codex: ChatGPT web may require OAuth and may not accept a raw key.
- Instinct: no verified public BYOA/MCP key-paste connector yet.
- OpenClaw: setup varies by version.
- Another MCP agent: any MCP client that can use the endpoint and a scoped key.
Creating a key and choosing "Use for new notes" does not prove the agent is running. BYOA shows connection state, not a live heartbeat.
Managing notes
- Mark Handled when a note has been acted on. BYOA deletes its copy immediately.
- Delete removes a waiting note and its audio without handling it.
- No recovery. Because BYOA is a relay, handled or deleted notes cannot be restored from BYOA.
Privacy
What BYOA collects, how long it keeps it, and your controls are described in the BYOA Privacy Policy. In short: no location, contacts, photos, health data, advertising identifiers, third-party analytics, or data sale. Notes are not used for advertising or model training.
Contact
Email support@byoa.me with your device model, app version (in Account), and a short description of the problem. Do not send agent keys, passwords, or note contents you consider sensitive.