The Spellbook.

Wake your wand

Your wand carries a touch chip. When it meets your phone, the phone opens your AI in voice mode, already listening. You set this up once.

On an iPhone:

1. Open the Shortcuts app and go to Automation.
2. Start a new automation and choose NFC.
3. Tap Scan, then hold the glow stone end of your wand to the top of your phone.
4. Name it after your wand and set it to run immediately.
5. For the action, choose your AI app and its voice conversation action.

On Android, the steps depend on the phone. We set it up with you at the workshop, and it takes about five minutes.

The chip has no battery. Your phone powers it for the instant they touch, so the wand never needs charging.

Cast a spell

Touch the wand to your phone. When you hear your AI's voice mode open, say the incantation. That's it.

You can add to a spell as you cast it. “Presto, and skip the weather.” “Open sesame, but tell her I'm stopping for groceries.” The skill is the plan; your words on the day adjust it.

Speak the incantation first. It tells your AI which skill to reach for before anything else you say.

Write the skill

A spell is only as good as its skill: the instructions your AI follows when it hears the word. Good skills have the same shape.

• The trigger. Start with: When I say “the word”, do this.
• The steps. Three to seven, in order, each one specific. Not “check my email” but “look at email from the last 12 hours from family or anything that needs an answer today.”
• The details. Your preferences: how long the answer should be, what to skip, whose name to use.
• The answer back. How it should sound and how it should end.
• The safeguard. What it must never do without asking: send, buy, delete or post.

Here is Presto, the first spell on every wand:

To teach it, paste the skill into your AI's saved instructions or memory, or simply say “Remember this spell” and read it out. Then cast it and adjust until it's right. Try the spell writer to draft one in seconds.

Give it hands

A skill tells your AI what to do. Connectors let it actually do it. Each connector links your AI to one of your apps: calendar, email, messages, notes, maps, music, your smart home.

Without connectors a spell can only talk. With them it can check your schedule, draft the text, find the drive time and save the note.

Every AI company offers a different set, and the list grows every month. Start with one connector, usually your calendar, and write a spell that uses it. Add the next when you need it.

Connecting accounts is the part most people get stuck on. It's also exactly what we help with at Charleston AI, in person, with your own phone and laptop.

Keep a spellbook

Once you have a few spells, bundle them. A set of spells together with the connectors they need is a plugin: a spellbook you can save, improve and share.

A family spellbook might hold the school run, the grocery list and the bedtime story. A shop's spellbook might hold opening, closing and the end-of-day numbers. Hand it to someone new and they can cast on their first day.

Cast safely

• Choose incantations you'd never say by accident. Unusual words work better than ordinary ones.
• Put a safeguard in every skill that touches the outside world: ask before sending, buying, deleting or posting.
• Keep spells that reach money or private accounts for when you're alone with your phone.
• Read your spells once a month. Delete the ones you stopped using; sharpen the rest.

Care for your wand

Wipe it with a dry cloth. Every few months, rub in a drop of furniture oil or wax and buff it off. Keep it out of water and out of a hot car.

The glow stones charge in any light. Leave the wand on a windowsill and it will glow for hours after dark. The brass will darken with handling; that's patina, and it's meant to happen.