Tag Archives: github-projects

Post-Mortem & Morning Chats: The Road to a Personal Assistant That Listens

30 Jun

Well, the first blog post is live… but not in the way I originally planned.

The idea was to publish automatically through a script I wrote to connect with the WordPress API. It almost worked — but hit a legacy permissions issue tied to my hosting account. So I posted it manually instead (with help from LittleBit, of course). We’re still troubleshooting the automation and will share updates as we go. That’s part of the journey.

In the meantime, we’ve been expanding the vision.

We’re now thinking bigger than just one screen or one experience. LittleBit is meant to be personal — so it needs to go wherever the person goes. That means we’re designing for categories, not brands: TVsvoice recognition systemsmobile devices, and tablets, with flexibility to add more later. The goal is hands-free interaction — seamless, personalized, and everywhere.

To get there, we’ve been starting each day with what we call a “morning chat.” It’s a casual conversation — friendly, short responses, easy back-and-forth. Just enough space to sip your coffee and talk through what’s on your mind.

And we’re learning a lot from these chats.

For one, not everyone wants to dive into solutions first thing in the morning. Some just want to reflect, think out loud, or say hello. So we’re testing different conversation types that match the user’s mood and context. For example:

  • Morning Chat – casual, human, maybe even a little sleepy
  • Brainstorming Mode – idea-driven, open-ended, fast interruptions allowed
  • Work Mode – task-focused, structured, goal-oriented
  • Nightly Reflection – thoughtful, slower pace, winding down

The idea is that LittleBit will adapt to each mode — and eventually, each user — with the right tone, speed, and interaction style.

That brings us to the next step: defining LittleBit’s personality and characteristics.

This means starting with an initial interaction that feels welcoming and responsive — then learning over time how that individual wants to talk, work, and think. It’ll learn their pace. Their preferred style. Even their preferred language. But only for them.

Which is why we’re building this with a micro-service architecture — each part handling a specific job (like “mood” detection or “pause time”), with strict security to ensure nothing is shared or generalized unless the user wants it to be. The assistant is personal. And that means it never reuses your data to help someone else.

We’re also seriously considering making this an open source project.

Why? Because the only way to build a truly personal assistant is to hear from many different personalities. We’re exploring GitHub to share our progress, open the floor for feedback, and create a space where others can collaborate and shape what LittleBit becomes.

The first step in that process?

Morning Chat interface anyone can try. One conversation at a time, we’ll learn how to make technology feel a little more human — and a lot more useful.

More to come.

— Jason Darwin
Creator of LittleBit

P.S.

If you made it this far, you’re officially part of the inner circle. Every day, we’ll leave a little something extra down here — sometimes clever, sometimes nerdy, sometimes just for fun.

We’ve been quietly debating whether LittleBit should live in a private cloud (for max control) or on-device (for max privacy). Bonus points if you’ve got strong feelings about IR blasters, Zigbee vs. Matter, or whether AI needs its own secure thumb drive someday. 😏

As we’ve been discussing LittleBit, two songs keep popping into my head:

🎶 “Just a lil bit…” from Nelly & Florida Georgia Line’s Lil Bit
🎶 “With a little bit… of luck!” from My Fair Lady

Have a great day!