Ask Bunter · Manual

What Ask Bunter is

One private board for the things you would otherwise check in five apps every morning: your mail and calendar, your bank and what you spent, the news you follow, the weather, your health, and the websites you use. Everything is gathered on the Ask Bunter server (run by the person who invited you), read-only, and a chat sits on top of it: ask it anything about your data, ask it to rearrange the board, or ask it how to connect something.

Two rules run through all of it. Nothing here can move money, send mail, or change anything in the services it reads. And your board is yours: nobody else on the server sees it, except the parts you choose to share with friends (see Who can see my data).

You build your board yourself, with this manual and the chat to help. The only thing you add outside the board is the Ask Bunter extension for Chrome, and only if you want to link websites you use.

Getting started

A new board is empty on purpose: it shows only what you connect. The Get started list at the top of your home page walks you through it, and ticks each step by itself once it is done:

1. Connect your Google account: your mail, calendar and files, read-only. Google shows a screen saying Google hasn't verified this app once: press Advanced, then Go to the board's address (details).
2. Connect Apple Health (in the iPhone app): one tap, then the iPhone asks which figures you share (details).
3. Add a source: the weather, the news, stocks, your bank, WHOOP or Garmin. ☰ Settings → Add a source lists everything you can connect, each on its own row (the short table).
4. Save your API keys: a key from any service you use, pasted once. It is kept encrypted on the server and never shown again, and the chat fetches what you ask for with it (details).
5. Get the Chrome extension: on a computer, in Google Chrome. It links the websites you use to your board (details).
6. Link a website you use: a shop, a marketplace, your bank's website. Open it in Chrome, click the Ask Bunter icon and press Link this site to the board (details).
7. Ask the chat something: press Ask and try “What can I connect to my board?”. It knows this manual and your board (details).
8. Get the iPhone app: it comes through Apple's TestFlight. Ask the person who invited you to add you; you will get two emails from Apple (details).

Hide this list takes it off your home page; ☰ Settings → Add a source → Show it again brings it back (in the iPhone app, the manual stays one tap away: Settings → Manual). It goes by itself once every step is done. Each source you connect gets a row on ☰ Settings → Sources with how its last sync went; when something needs you, it is listed under Needs attention on the home page.

The board

Home, Board and Settings

The header has two pages. Home is a page you arrange yourself (below). Board is everything, in colour-coded sections of cards: Today (briefing, weather, what's coming up, alerts), Health, News, Funds & spending, Portfolio & markets, Inbox and Files. The iPhone app shows them even while they are empty, so you can see where things go: an empty one says what goes in it, with the buttons that set it up there and then (Add stocks, Connect Google…) and How, which opens this manual at the part about it. The web board shows a section once something is in it. Sites & servers (websites and servers you run) and Code (repositories) are on a board only once a card of yours is in them. A source you connect gets a section of its own, named after it, right under Today, with the cards that are its alone, so you always find what you just added; what a linked website gives goes into that site's own section the same way. Move its cards into another section whenever you like (a card's ⋯ → Move to), or leave them. A card several sources feed together (Needs attention, your payments, your mail) stays where it is, and the new source's items show in it; the weather stays in Today and the news in News. Each section's open → gives it a page of its own.

Everything that is upkeep rather than information lives under ☰ Settings in the header. It opens on a short list; each row opens a page, with ‹ Settings to come back:

• Add a source: everything you can connect, in plain words, each opening its own steps.
• Sources: every connection and how its last sync went, grouped into Needs you, Connected and Not connected, with Sync all. Each row's ⋯ holds Sync now, Rename, its card on the board and, for a connection you added, Remove connection.
• Connected accounts (Google) · Linked websites (each site linked with the Chrome extension, and whether its session is fine) · iPhone shortcuts · API keys (the keys of your own connections).
• Stored data (how much your board has saved, by source) · Hidden cards · Appearance & voice (light or dark, and the voice that reads the briefing).
• Account: your email address, password, where you are signed in, and Delete my account.

A row shows a short value ("5 connected") and a red count when it holds something to fix. The ☾ button switches between light and dark.

The home page: your own arrangement

The home page is a set of blocks you arrange, the way widgets sit on a phone's home screen. A block is the briefing, needs attention, a whole section or a single card, at one of three sizes: ▪ small is a tile with one number, ▬ medium a summary, ■ large everything it holds. So "all my health on the home page" is the Health section at large; "just my steps" is the WHOOP or Garmin card at small.

• ✎ edit home opens a side panel with everything you can add. Each row has add or remove; section rows also have ▲ ▼ for their order and a colour swatch. On the page, each block has a bar: ▲ ▼ to move it, ▪ ▬ ■ for its size, ✕ to take it off; or drag the block. Changes save as you go; done closes the panel, reset puts the default back.
• Hold a block (or right-click it) for the same menu any time.
• Needs attention is your to-do list, and it says each problem once: New since the briefing, You asked (what you asked the chat to watch for you), Alerts, Your action (a code to type, a session to renew, an approval to give) and From the briefing. Each line leads to where it is fixed, and its ✕ dismisses it on every device (with an undo). Mail never lands here just because it arrived (an invoice, a receipt, a newsletter): if you want to be told about something, ask the chat, for example "tell me when my next electricity bill is due". It keeps a line for it, checked every morning; "stop watching my bills" ends it, and "stop telling me about that shop" takes a line off.

Reading it

• Click a section's title bar or a card's title to fold it; the board remembers.
• A card shows its first rows. When it holds more, see all 24 › at its foot opens the whole card on its own: a sheet on a computer, a page on the phone. It works the same on every card: lists, news, figures, charts and tables, and Needs attention on Home.
• Tap a row to open it in place. ⌄ at the end of a row says it has more to read (its summary, the rest of a mail); open ↗ is always on the row of anything that lives somewhere else, and opens it there: the mail in Gmail, the article at its source, the item on its site.
• Amounts in Funds & spending start blurred. Every card there has an eye to show them, remembered per card.
• Cards fed by several Google accounts have pills at the top to look at one account at a time; the News cards have pills per category.
• Data cards have an ask button (Ask about this in the app) that opens a new chat about that card. Nothing is asked for you: the chat knows which card you mean, so "what does this column mean?" is enough.
• Under each card's title, updated 5m ago says when its data last came in.
• The board refreshes itself every minute while open; ↻ refreshes at once. Sources sync every 15 minutes, some less often (see each one below).

Charts and tables

Ask for data ("my holdings on a site I linked", "orders this month by day") and the chat shows it under its answer the way it reads best: bars, a pie, a line over time, a table, a list or one figure. Show as above it draws the same rows another way; only the kinds the rows can make are offered (a line needs dates, a pie parts of a whole), and your choice is kept, so the chat, the board and the iPhone app show it the same way. Add to board pins it as a card, kept up to date; the line under it says where it went.

Every card with data works this way. A card's ⋯ has:

• Show as: figures, a table, bars, a pie or a line, whichever its data can make. Weather can be a line or bars of the high and low; spending, bars or a pie per category or per merchant.
• Rename ›: names of your own for what the card shows. First its column and axis names: a table's headers, the names along a chart's axes, a figure's name (Spent for "Amount"). Then the values in each column, such as Bitcoin for BTC. Each one's own name stays under it; empty the box to give it back.
• Rename card ›: a name of your own for the card; Its own name gives the original back.

Names are kept with the card on the server, so every device, the chat and the voice use them, after every refresh and when the chat draws the card again; the data itself never changes. You can also ask the chat: "call the Amount column Spent".

Arranging your board

Press ✎ edit on a section's title bar to edit it, on every device you use:

• ▲ ▼ move the section up or down. The order is also the order the briefing (and its voice) follows.
• Drag a card to reorder the cards inside the section; drag its right or bottom edge to resize it (double-click an edge to reset).
• ✕ on a card hides it. The source stays connected and the chat still sees its data. A card drawn from a linked website is the exception: what only that card showed is not fetched from the site while it is hidden, and it catches up as soon as you show it again; ☰ Settings → Hidden cards lists every hidden card with show again.

Outside edit mode, a card's ⋯ holds Show as, Rename card ›, Move to section › (pick one, or New section…) and Take off the board.

Adding a card: cards appear by themselves when you connect a source. A card you hid comes back from ☰ Settings → Hidden cards; a linked website's cards from ☰ Settings → Linked websites → + Add; a chart the chat drew, from Add to board under it.

Or ask the chat, which sees every section and card by name: "make a section called Travel and move my calendar into it", "hide the Files card", "put Health before News", "put things back". The change appears within a minute, or press ↻.

The chat

The Ask button opens the chat on your list of chats. A row reopens that chat, typing from the list starts a new one, ‹ goes back to the list, and ⋯ renames a chat or forgets it. You keep up to 20 chats; the one you have not touched for longest drops off. Chats are kept on the server, so a conversation started on the computer continues on the phone. The 🎤 takes the question by voice: on the web board it sends what you said; in the iPhone app, the microphone sits where the send button is while the box is empty, writes what you say into the box as you speak (on the iPhone itself where it can) and stops after a pause or a tap, so you can read the question before you send it.

The chat can search everything your board holds and quote the passage that matters, add things up (spending by merchant, this month against last), explain a figure from the connection's own notes, draw a chart, and change your board. Under each answer a line says what it looked at; while it works, a line beside "thinking…" says what it is doing. It works in steps, at most eight in one go: then it answers with what it found and says what is still open, and "go on" continues.

An answer is written on the server, so you can close the chat, switch apps or put the phone away while it works: the chat's row says answering…, and the answer is there when you open the chat again. A chat answers one question at a time.

Good things to ask

• "What can I connect to my board?" — "How do I connect my bank?" — it answers from this manual.
• "What did I spend on groceries this month?" — "Which subscriptions renew this week?" — "How did my sleep compare to last month?"
• "Summarise today's news in five lines." — "What is the board alerting about?" — "Why does the Garmin row say paused?"
• "Make a section called My shop and move the orders into it." — "Show Health in full on my home page." — "Sync my bank now."

What it will not do

It only reads: from your connections it fetches, lists and searches, never creates, sends, deletes or pays. It never sees your keys or your sessions for websites: the server puts them into each call. It cannot remove a source; that is yours to do on the Sources page. And it says so when your data does not hold the answer, rather than inventing one.

Reminders

"Remind me on the 3rd to renew my passport" sets a reminder that shows in Today once it is within a month, and the briefing mentions it as it comes closer. The chat does not add events to your Google Calendar unless the person who runs the board has turned that on; it offers a reminder instead.

To keep things fair for everyone on the board, the chat takes up to 30 questions an hour (see What it costs you).

Friends, groups & messages

Pick what of your board to share: all your friends see it, as it is now and read only, and so does anyone you send your link to. A group of your friends can be shown more on top of that, and you can write to your friends and in your groups. Nothing is shared until you pick it, and nothing else of your board ever is. On the web board it all lives under Friends (on a phone, the two-people sign next to Board); in the iPhone app, under Friends.

Choosing what to share

Choose what to share lists your sections and their cards. Share the whole section shares every card in it, including cards that land in it later; or tick single cards. A section that holds something personal says so under its name. Show amounts is off until you turn it on: others see ••• for each amount. Preview shows exactly what your friends and your link show, right now.

A shared mail card shows the sender, the subject and a short preview, never who else the mail went to; a shared calendar shows when and where, never notes or guests; the spending card shows totals. Never shared, whatever you tick: Needs attention, a linked website's own card, and cards you took off your board.

Your link

Get a link, then WhatsApp, Copy or Share…. Whoever opens it sees what you share without signing in, so send it only to people you would show it to. New link makes another one and the old link stops working; Turn off stops it altogether.

Groups

A group is some of your friends, made by you, to show them more of your board and to write to them together. On the Friends page, new group: give it a name and tick who is in it. Choose what it sees works like Choose what to share, with a Show amounts of its own. Everyone in a group sees its name and who is in it (names and usernames, never email addresses). Only you change your group; someone in it can leave it.

Messages

Write to a friend from the Messages card, from their row under Your friends or from their board; each group has a chat of its own. Messages are text, up to 4,000 characters. Unsend a message you wrote and its words are gone for everyone. Mute a chat to stop its notifications; Clear empties a chat for you only.

Friends

Add a friend by their username or their email address; once they accept, each of you sees what the other shares, and you can write to each other. Asking by email never tells you whether that address has a board here. Block someone from their request or their board: you stop being friends, they can't find you or ask again, and they aren't told. Friends see your name and username, never your email address. Not on Ask Bunter yet? Only the person who runs this board invites people: ask them.

Notifications (iPhone app): on the Friends view, Notify me on this iPhone. You hear when someone asks to be friends, accepts, adds you to a group, or writes to you — who wrote, never what they wrote.

Your username is made from your name when you join; change it on the Friends page or the Account page.

Adding anything: the short version

All of these start from ☰ Settings → Add a source.

Whatever the route, the same things follow: a row on the Sources page with its sync state, a card you can move anywhere, notes the chat uses to explain its figures, and alerts. If a source says needs setup, its row says what is missing.

Google: mail, calendar and files

Mail, calendar and files come from Google with read-only permissions: the board can never send, delete or change anything in your Google account.

Connecting, step by step

1. ☰ Settings → Connected accounts → Sign in with Google (or Connect Google on the Get started list), and pick your address.
2. Google shows a screen saying “Google hasn't verified this app”. That is expected: this is a private board that Google has not reviewed. Press Advanced (small, at the bottom left), then Go to followed by the board's address (it says unsafe in brackets; that is Google's standard wording for an app it has not reviewed).
3. Google lists what the board may read: tick the boxes for mail, calendar and files (all read-only) and press Continue. You land back on your board.

The last 90 days of mail, the calendar and your files' names and text are read right away (mail can take a minute or two); from then on every 15 minutes.

Pressed Cancel, or Back to safety? Nothing was connected and nothing was shared: the board says so when you come back. Press Sign in with Google again whenever you like. A box you left unticked means that part (mail, calendar or files) stays empty; refresh access on the account's row asks Google again.

More accounts, and taking access back

Up to three Google accounts. Each extra one appears as its own sources and gets its own pill on the mail, calendar and files cards. Every account's row has refresh access: use it if mail, calendar or files stop syncing; it says sign in again, in red, when Google has ended the sign-in. Remove on any account, the first one too, withdraws the board's access at Google and deletes everything that was synced from it. You can also withdraw access on Google's side at myaccount.google.com/permissions.

Your Google accounts are yours alone: what you connect shows on your board only.

Bank accounts: your bank

Banks in the EU and the UK are read through Open Banking: European rules oblige banks to share your own account data, read-only, with a licensed company you approve. Ask Bunter uses Enable Banking as that company; it covers about 2,700 banks (app-only ones such as Revolut too) and is free for accounts you link yourself. Nothing can move money this way.

Be ready for some effort: it takes about 15 minutes, on a computer, the first time. You make a free Enable Banking account, create a small "application" there (it is how Enable Banking knows the request comes from you), and you approve in your bank's app twice: once to let Enable Banking see your accounts, once to open the board's own connection. Later banks reuse the same application and take two minutes.

Setup, step by step

1. Enable Banking account: sign up at enablebanking.com with your email (no company needed).
2. Application: in its control panel, add a new application in Production, let the browser generate the key, and enter the redirect address the board's bank sheet shows you. The form also asks for a description, an email, and privacy and terms addresses: the sheet gives you each one to copy.
3. Key file: your browser saves a file ending in .pem, named after the Application ID. It is the only copy: keep it. Don't double-click it (a Mac would put it in Keychain); open it with a text editor (on a Mac: right-click → Open With → TextEdit), select all and copy.
4. First approval: on the application's page, Activate by linking accounts, choose your bank, and approve in its app. This lets Enable Banking see your accounts; nothing reaches the board yet.
5. On the board: ☰ Settings → Add a source → Your bank: paste the key text and the Application ID (first bank only), pick the country and the bank from the list, and Save.
6. Second approval: the Sources page shows the bank with needs your approval → approve access. Approve in your bank's app again; you land on the board with the first pull done: 90 days of payments and today's balances.

What you get, and renewal

A balance per account under Funds & spending, and every payment in the Spending card with merchant, amount and category. Pulls run every 8 hours because banks limit background reads. Your approval lasts up to 90 days: a reminder appears three days before, and the Sources page offers a new approve link; only that last step is repeated. Each bank is its own row and its own renewal.

Health: WHOOP and Garmin

The Health section holds a card per wearable (and one for Apple Health from the iPhone app). Each card shows its lead figure in a ring, the others you chose as tiles, and a 30-day trend. + KPIs on the card lists everything the device can give; tick what you want and Save. The chat can answer about all of it ("how did my HRV compare to last month?").

WHOOP

1. WHOOP has no personal key: you register a small app of your own, once. Sign in at developer.whoop.com with your WHOOP account, create an app named Ask Bunter, set the redirect address the board's WHOOP sheet shows (copy it exactly), and tick every box, including offline (without it the connection stops after an hour).
2. ☰ Settings → Add a source → WHOOP: paste the Client Secret as the key and the Client ID in its field, Save. Then approve access at WHOOP: sign in, approve, and you land back on the board with 30 days of recovery, strain, sleep and workouts.
3. Pulls run hourly. If WHOOP drops the connection, the Sources row shows approve access again; only that step is repeated.

Garmin

1. Garmin has no personal key, so the board signs in to Garmin Connect the way its phone app does. ☰ Settings → Add a source → Garmin: your Garmin Connect email, your password as the key, Save. Your password is kept on the server (never shown again) and used only when Garmin's session needs renewing; a session token does the daily work.
2. Two-step verification? Garmin sends you a code at the first sign-in and the board asks for it, right after you save and on the Sources page (needs your code). Type it and press confirm.
3. The first pull reads the last three weeks (a couple of minutes); later pulls run hourly. Garmin dislikes frequent sign-ins, so after a refusal the board pauses that source and says paused until… rather than retry.

Get the iPhone app

The iPhone app is the same board on your iPhone (and iPad): the home page, every section and card, the chat, and Settings. It also reads Apple Health, which no website can.

Installing it

The app is in a private test on Apple's TestFlight, not in the App Store.

1. Ask the person who invited you to add you as a tester. They need the email address of your Apple ID (the one your iPhone uses for the App Store).
2. First you'll get an email from App Store Connect inviting you to join their team: accept it (sign in with your Apple ID if asked). That is all it is for: you have nothing else to do there.
3. Then you'll get an email from TestFlight. Open it on your iPhone and tap View in TestFlight. If your iPhone asks, install TestFlight from the App Store first (it's Apple's free app for test versions).
4. In TestFlight, tap Accept, then Install.
5. Open Ask Bunter and sign in with the same email and password as on the web, or with Google.

A new version shows up in TestFlight by itself; open TestFlight and tap Update.

Using it

• Hold a card's title to lift it and drag it anywhere, into another section too (in ✎ Edit, anywhere on the card). Hold a section's title to move the whole section.
• Hold the words on a card to select them: drag the handles to take more or less, then Copy.
• ✎ Edit, then drag a card's corner to make it Small, Medium or Large, like widgets on the iPhone's home screen.
• Every card and section has a ⋯ menu: size, fold, Move to section, put on the home page, take off the board, and on a chart Show as.

Where things are is one arrangement for all your devices: move a card on the phone and it has moved on the web too. Sizes belong to each screen. Invite and password-reset links open the app when it is installed, and connecting Google, a bank or WHOOP from the app brings you back to it.

Apple Health, from the iPhone app

In the Ask Bunter iPhone app: Settings → Connected accounts → Apple Health → Connect Apple Health. iOS shows its own sheet: pick what Ask Bunter may read (steps, walking distance, active energy, exercise minutes, heart rate, resting heart rate, heart rate variability, blood oxygen, sleep) and press Allow. That is all: no shortcut, no token.

The first time it sends the last week; after that, each time you open the app, the days since it last sent. iOS keeps Health locked while the iPhone is locked, so nothing is sent in the background: the Apple Health card is as of the last time you opened the app (its "updated" line says when). Send now sends at once; Turn off stops it on that phone (what was sent stays). To change what it may read: the Health app → your picture → Apps → Ask Bunter. Health belongs to the iPhone, so it goes to one board: if someone else signs in to Ask Bunter on your iPhone, it sends them nothing unless they connect it, which first warns them and then stops it going to you.

Bank texts and Apple Pay: iPhone shortcuts

Some data exists only on the phone: your bank's text messages and your Apple Pay payments. No app can read those on an iPhone, so Ask Bunter uses Apple Shortcuts: a ready-made shortcut you install once, then an automation you create in the Shortcuts app that runs it (Apple does not let automations be shared, so that one step is always yours). iOS runs it the moment a text or a payment comes, even while the iPhone is locked.

Installing a shortcut

1. On the iPhone, in the Ask Bunter app (or the board in Safari): Settings → iPhone shortcuts → + Add a shortcut → Install.
2. Shortcuts asks two questions: the board's address (as in your browser's address bar) and your access token (☰ Settings → Account → Access token for shortcuts → Make a new token; it is shown once, so paste it now). Nothing personal is built into the file.
3. Create the automation: Shortcuts app → Automation → + → the trigger the card names → Run Shortcut → the one you installed → Run Immediately, notifications off.

The shortcuts

• Text messages: forwards texts to your board as they arrive, where your text message rules decide what becomes of each. Trigger: Automation → + → Message, Message Contains a single space (so every text comes and your rules decide).
• Apple Pay: every in-store Apple Pay payment (merchant, amount, card) becomes a payment the moment you pay. Trigger: Automation → + → Wallet (called Transaction before iOS 26). Apple does not hand online payments to Shortcuts.

Only these ready-made shortcuts are offered; making new shortcuts of your own isn't available on this board.

Text message rules

The iPhone app's Settings → Text messages holds your rules for the texts the shortcut forwards. A rule looks for who the text is from, words it contains, or both, and does one of: Make it a payment, Keep it (a message you can search), Keep it and tell me (kept, put under Needs attention, and a notification that names the sender, never the words), or Don't keep it (nothing of it is stored). The first rule that fits decides; Move up and Move down change the order. Try a text shows what would become of one, storing nothing.

Which bank texts become payments: today the board can read card-payment alerts from BLF (Banque Libano-Française) only. A text from another bank is kept as a message you can search and ask the chat about, but it does not become a payment on the Spending card. For most banks in Europe and the UK, Open Banking is the better way in.

Good to know

• A shortcut that answers 401 was installed with an empty or old token: edit its second Text action and paste the token again.
• The same text or payment arriving twice is stored once.

Get the Chrome extension

The Ask Bunter extension for Chrome links the websites you use to your board (Linked websites). It works in Google Chrome on a computer (Mac, Windows or Linux), not on a phone. It isn't in the Chrome Web Store: you download it from your board and add it to Chrome yourself, once. It takes a few minutes.

1. On your board, press Get the extension on the Get started list (or ☰ Settings → Linked websites → Get the Chrome extension), then Download the extension in the window that opens. A zip file downloads (from /get/extension on the board's address).
2. Open the zip file to unzip it: you get a folder called Ask Bunter extension (Windows: right-click → Extract All; that makes a folder holding the Ask Bunter extension folder: take the inner one). Keep it somewhere you won't delete it, such as your Documents: Chrome runs the extension from that folder.
3. In Chrome, type chrome://extensions in the address bar and press Enter.
4. Turn on Developer mode (top right).
5. Press Load unpacked and choose the folder from step 2.
6. Pin it: click the puzzle piece in Chrome's toolbar, then the pin next to Ask Bunter.
7. Back on your board, in the same Chrome, reload the page, then press Connect the extension (on the Get the Chrome extension window, or under ☰ Settings → Linked websites). The extension now shows whose board it is connected to (your name and email). No token to copy.

Chrome may now and then mention developer mode extensions: that is because the extension did not come from the Web Store. Keep it.

Updating it

When a newer version is out, the board says so. Download it again, put the new Ask Bunter extension folder in place of the old one (on Windows, the inner folder again), press ↻ on Ask Bunter at chrome://extensions, then reload your board's page.

Disconnecting it

The extension appears on your Account page under Signed in on as Chrome extension. Sign out everywhere else, changing your password and any password reset disconnect it; press Connect the extension on the board again to reconnect. To take it off Chrome: chrome://extensions → Ask Bunter → Remove.

What it can see

The extension needs Chrome's debugger permission: it is the only way to see how a website fetches your data. It records only the tab you pressed Link (or Pick it on the page) on, only while its bar is shown, and sends only to your board, over HTTPS (see Who can see my data).

Each linked website also needs your yes, once, to be read later without a recording: at Finish linking, or with Keep the board signed in to … or Allow background sync in the extension, on the site. Chrome asks with its standard wording, “Read and change your data on …”: Chrome has no read-only choice. Ask Bunter only reads; it never changes anything on the site. You can take the yes back at chrome://extensions → Ask Bunter → Details → Site access.

Tabs it opens

Now and then the extension needs a page of a linked website: to sign the board back in (When the session runs out), to read a site the board reads through your Chrome, or to fetch a site only your browser can read. If you have the site open in a tab, it uses that tab and only listens to it: it never reloads it or changes what you are doing. Otherwise it opens the site in a background tab, for a few seconds (up to a minute when it reads several things in a row), and closes it again. So a tab of a site you linked appearing for a moment is the extension, nothing else.

When you press a button in the extension on a site (Keep the board signed in, Sign the board in again now), the page you are on reloads once, and no other tab opens.

Linked websites

Most websites have no public way in, but their pages fetch your data as you use them. The extension watches that once, on the tab you choose, and the board learns from it how to fetch your data by itself.

1. Link: open the website in Chrome, signed in. Click the Ask Bunter icon, check the name, press Link this site to the board. Chrome shows a "debugging" bar (that is the extension watching), and the page gets a small bar of its own with a Done browsing button. Use the site as usual and open the pages whose data you want (orders, balance, history).
2. Finish: press Done browsing on that small bar, click the Ask Bunter icon and press Finish linking. Chrome may ask to let Ask Bunter read the site: choose Allow, so the board stays signed in by itself. The work continues on the server even if you close Chrome.
3. Add its cards: under ☰ Settings → Linked websites, open the site's row: under Add to your board are the cards it can fill, each tried once, so only those that bring data are offered. + Add puts one in the site's own section. Ask for something else… asks the chat for anything else the site has.
4. Ask: "my last ten orders on name", "how much did I sell there this month?". Say "put it on the board, hourly" and the chat keeps it as a card.

A site's row says how it is: Updated …, Nothing on your board yet, Signed out (with the one step that fixes it), Waiting for your Chrome. How the board reads <site> (closed by default) says whether the board reads the site directly or through your Chrome; Automatic is best. Everything the board can read from <site> lists the rest of what it found there; Show me puts the question in the chat.

Your session for the site is kept on the server, separately; the chat never sees it. You can link up to 6 websites a day. Remove on the site's row forgets it whole: what was learned, the recordings, its section and every card it made.

Pick it on the page

To have a chart, a table or a figure of a linked website on your board the way the site draws it (a solar inverter's power profile, a portfolio's chart), open the page that shows it, click the Ask Bunter icon and press Pick it on the page.

1. The page reloads, and a small Ask Bunter bar asks you to click what you want. Moving the pointer outlines the piece under it; a click takes it. While you pick, your clicks don't reach the site. Cancel on the bar, or Esc, stops without keeping anything.
2. The Ask Bunter window opens with a picture of what you picked. Choose the section it goes in (the site's own is first) and press Add to my board. You can close the window then: the Ask Bunter icon shows … while the board works on it and ✓ once it is on your board (! if it couldn't be: click the icon to see why), and the bar on the page says so too. The window opens again on the ✓ while you are still on that page.
3. Ask Bunter looks at it, finds which of the site's own calls it comes from, and draws it from that call: the same lines, bars or columns with the site's names and units (a battery's percent beside watts on an axis of its own on the right). A chart of a day keeps showing today. It stays up to date like any other card, and the chat can read it.

The same window lists, under What the board reads from <site>, everything the board already reads there, with how many readings each holds and how far apart. If what you want is missing, open the page that shows it and pick it there: the board learns that page's calls then, without linking the site again. A pick sends only that page's calls and the picture to your board; up to 30 picks a day.

When the session runs out

Websites end sessions after hours or days. The first refused call marks the site signed out (its row, Needs attention and the extension all say so), and the board stops calling it instead of retrying. Your Chrome signs the board back in by itself once you allowed it: while Chrome is open, the extension hands the board your current session for the site, from a tab of the site you have open or else a background tab for a few seconds (Tabs it opens). To do it now: on the site, click the Ask Bunter icon and press Keep the board signed in to … (once allowed: Sign the board in again now); the page reloads once. If you are signed out of the site in Chrome too, open it and sign in: that visit signs the board back in. Or, by hand: Link again in the extension (load one page, Done browsing, Finish linking).

If Chrome no longer lets the extension open the site (its access was taken back at chrome://extensions, or Chrome was connected to someone else's board), the board can't be signed back in by itself, and the site's row and Needs attention say so, with the button to press on the site.

Sites only your browser can read

Some sites turn a server away. For those the board does not call the site at all: your Chrome fetches the data in a tab of the site, signed in as you, and hands it to the board. Allow it once: on the site, click the Ask Bunter icon and press Allow background sync. It runs by itself while Chrome is open, in a tab of the site you have open or else a background tab for a few seconds (Tabs it opens); with Chrome closed, the numbers wait and the row shows how old they are. Collectr is such a site: link app.getcollectr.com this way, like any other website.

Staying on the site's good side

The board paces itself on every site (a limited number of calls a minute, an hour and a day, and scheduled pulls no more than every half hour), and the moment a site says stop — "too many requests", a bot check, a run of errors — it pauses that site and says so in plain words, with when it will try again. Nothing is retried in a loop.

Weather, news, markets and other services

Some services are ready-made: the board already knows what to fetch, how often, which cards to show and what each figure means. ☰ Settings → Add a source, pick one, and follow its steps; the form is filled in for you.

• Free, no key: Weather (any places), News (feeds and topics you follow), Stocks (tickers) and Crypto (coins), each on its own row of Add a source. Start typing a place, a ticker or a coin and pick it from the list that comes up (the Barcelona in Spain, not the one in Venezuela); each one you pick is a chip you can take off again. Then Connect; cards appear within a minute.
• The weather card holds every place you follow, one at a time: tap a place's name at its top (or swipe across the card on a phone) to see another; the board remembers the one you looked at last. It is drawn over the sky there right now, by day or night, clear, cloudy, raining or snowing, as Apple Weather does: the whole card, and the whole page when you open it in the app. places on the web (Edit places in the app), at the top of the card, adds or removes one: as you type, it offers the places with that name, with their region and country, so you pick the Barcelona you mean; the card shows the place you added next. A place you take off leaves the card at the next update.
• Money: your bank (above).
• Health: WHOOP and Garmin (above).
• With a key: any app or service that gives you an API key (below). A few have their steps written out already (GitHub, Cloudflare, Hetzner Cloud, Webshare): each sheet says exactly how to get a key with the least permission, read-only.

Keys are stored on the server and never shown again (only their last four characters, under ☰ Settings → API keys, where you can replace one). A source that stops working shows what to do on its row.

Any service with a key

A service that gives you an API key can be on your board, whether or not it is in the list: ☰ Settings → Add a source → A service with a key opens the form for any service. Give it a name, the service's address (it must start with https://) and the key; an MCP server works too. The key is kept encrypted on the server and never shown again, and the chat never sees it: the server puts it into each call. Then ask the chat: "discover my name" says what it offers; "show my open tickets on the board, hourly" makes the card. The chat only ever reads from it.

Not a developer? Ask the chat what you would like to see: it will say whether a ready-made service, a linked website or this form is the way in.

Your own AI assistant (Claude Code, MCP)

An AI assistant you use yourself, like Claude Code on your computer, can read your board too: it answers about your data in your own conversations, reads this manual and walks you through setting things up. It connects over MCP (the Model Context Protocol), with a token of its own.

1. ☰ Settings → Account → AI assistants (in the iPhone app: Settings → Account): type your password and press Connect an assistant. It shows a command, once.
2. On your computer, paste it where you run Claude Code (it begins claude mcp add): that connects Claude Code to your board. Another assistant that speaks MCP takes the address and the token the command holds.
3. In Claude Code, ask for example "what's on my Ask Bunter board today?" or "help me connect my bank to Ask Bunter".

What it can do: read your board (search, a record in full, a source's latest, a timeline, sums), how your sources are doing, what is left on Get started, what you can add with its steps, and this manual. It cannot change anything, see your keys or reach anyone else's board, and the token opens nothing else of the server. Keys and passwords are pasted on the board, never into the assistant.

Who sees what: what the assistant reads goes to the company that runs it (Anthropic, for Claude), as anything you show it does. Connect one only if you are fine with that. Turn off on its row stops its token at once; changing or resetting your password turns every assistant off, and deleting your account removes them.

Files

Files in your connected Google Drive are read and searchable by themselves: the chat can find a document and quote it. Adding other files (a PDF, a photo, a screenshot) isn't available on an invited board yet.

News

News has its own section: a card for World, one for each place or topic you follow, then Tech & AI, Business & markets, Science & health, Sports, Culture & lifestyle. Every story shows its headline, outlet, time and picture, and open ↗, which opens the article at its source. Tap a story (⌄) to read its summary in place. The same story from two outlets appears once. What you follow is set in the News source (☰ Settings → Add a source → Weather, news, stocks and crypto → News).

Alerts

Each connection carries rules about its own figures, checked after every pull: a threshold ("a server is not running", "90% of a plan used") or a drop against its usual ("half the usual traffic"). A source that goes quiet raises one too. A rule that fires shows as one line of Needs attention, leading to where it is fixed. Alerts withdraw themselves when the problem clears; ✕ dismisses one for good, on every device. Ask the chat "what is the board alerting about?" for the reading behind it.

The briefing

A short summary written by the assistant every morning at 7:00 in your own time zone, which the board takes from your browser or your phone by itself: a headline, then a few lines per section in the order of your sections — what came in, what is due, what moved, the big news of the day. What needs action is listed under Needs attention. It only reports what your board holds; it never invents figures. refresh briefing writes a new one, up to 10 times a day. Writing one can take a minute or two: the card says it is still writing, and shows the new one once it is done.

It reads today against its own last briefings: it does not repeat yesterday's line, it says what changed or how long something has lasted ("fourth day running"), and for a problem that drags on it proposes a next step (what to check, a fix, turning it off at its source) or asks whether to stop reporting it: tell the chat to stop reporting it, or tap ✕ on a line about it under Needs attention, and the next briefings leave it out. Every change it states says what it is against: spending this month so far against the same days of last month ("vs Sep 1–12"; in a month's first three days it gives the two amounts without a percent), a server figure against the same hour yesterday, a figure in percent by points ("17 points"), and next to its last seven days' average, low and high. The board's cards say the same: a figure's change names its day or hour, and the spending card names the days it compares with.

Sections, at the top of the briefing card, chooses what it covers: a chip for each of your sections, ✓ in the briefing or + left out. Tap Funds & spending, for instance, and the briefing leaves out your spending from then on: from the one on the board now, from what ▶ listen reads, from what friends you share it with see, and from the next ones, which are written without that section's data at all. Tap it again to put it back; the lines it had come back with it. Needs attention still lists every alert, whatever its section.

▶ listen reads it aloud, in a script written for the ear that is checked against the briefing's own lines, so what you hear is never less true than what you see. Needs attention is read as the board has it, every line in full, with its dates, amounts and proposed steps; short forms are said in full ("Tue 20 Oct" is Tuesday 20 October). In the iPhone app it pauses the music you are playing and lets it carry on when it ends, and it keeps reading with the app in the background or the phone locked. You can leave the app as soon as you tap it: it starts while the voice is still being made and reads each part as it comes; if you left before it could start (while it was still writing the script), it starts when you come back. If something stops it partway (AirPods taken out, another app's sound), it gives up after two minutes, lets your music carry on and says so; Listen plays it again from the start. Under ☰ Settings → Appearance & voice, Call me sets the name it greets you by, from the next ▶ listen, and Say it like fixes how the server's voice says it: spell your name the way it sounds ("Neev" for Niamh). With the server's own voice you also pick the voice, the pace and the pauses, and ▶ hear it plays a sample that greets you with your name.

The news summary

The first card of the News section sums up its headlines, just the big lines: a sentence or two per group (World, the topics you follow, Tech & AI…), to read or to hear: ▶ listen reads exactly what the card says, lighting up each part as it goes. It is written from the headlines and their summaries alone, and checked against them: a part that says more than they do is replaced by its own headlines, read as they are. Nobody has to ask for it: a new one is written each morning with your briefing, and by itself when you open the board and there is none yet, or newer headlines came in and the one shown is three hours old (it says Updating with the newest headlines… meanwhile, and keeps the one before on the card until the new one is in, never under a reading of it). That is at most six a day besides the morning's, and none once the month's assistant budget is nearly spent.

A summary on any section

Any section can have a summary on top of it, a few lines to read or to hear: ▶ listen reads exactly what the card says, lighting up each part as it goes. Choose who writes it from the section's ⋯ → Summaries in the iPhone app, or ✎ edit → Summaries on the web board; or ask the chat ("give my Sites section a summary").

• Ask Bunter sums up the section's own cards in two to five lines, checked against them: a line that says more than the cards do is left out. A new one is written each morning after your briefing, and whenever you press Write a new one (up to 20 a day).
• A brief written for you by a source you connected, shown and read exactly as it was written. The person who runs the board can put the two briefs of their projects' morning round here: Jarvis, the Chief of Staff, on every project, and Nick Fury, the Chief Security Officer, on security — each a headline, then what needs you (where, what to do and why, with links), then the morning's points and the security grades. A brief of today is also in your morning briefing, in the section its card sits in: its headline and everything it says needs you, as written. When one comes in, your iPhone tells you its headline (Nick Fury's only when something needs you).

A summary can be moved, sized or taken off the board like any card; turned on in another section, it moves there. Summaries are never shared with friends.

What it costs you

Nothing. The person who runs this board pays for the assistant. Each person has a monthly allowance for it (the chat, the briefing, learning a linked website); it starts again on the 1st of each month. If yours runs out, the chat and the briefing say so and work again on the 1st; everything else keeps working: your sources keep syncing and your cards stay up to date. You only ever see your own use.

To keep things fair for everyone, there is also a light pace: up to 30 questions an hour to the chat, 6 websites linked a day, 10 briefing refreshes a day, 10 news summaries a day and 20 section summaries a day.

Signing in and your password

Sign in with your email address and your password, with Sign in with Google (once your address is confirmed, below), or with Continue with Apple (once you turned it on, below). A browser stays signed in for 30 days after you last used it. Sign out is the last line of ☰ Settings, on the board and in the iPhone app. ☰ Settings → Account lists where you are signed in (browsers, the iPhone app, the Chrome extension), and can sign out all the others.

Confirm your address: when you join, a confirmation mail goes to the address you typed (mail from the board comes from Ask Bunter). Open its link in a browser where you are signed in to your board. The Account page says confirmed or not confirmed, with mail me the link to send it again. Connecting the Google account of that address confirms it too.

Changing your password (Account page) asks for the current one and signs you out everywhere else, the Chrome extension too: press Connect the extension again on your board. iPhone shortcuts keep working.

Forgot it? Press Forgot your password? on the sign-in page and type your address: a reset link is mailed to it (only to a confirmed address). It works once, for 2 hours. If nothing arrives, look in your spam folder. The person who runs the board can also make you a reset link (it lasts 24 hours); you get a mail when one is made for you and when it is used, so a link you did not ask for never goes unnoticed.

Any password reset signs you out everywhere, the Chrome extension too (press Connect the extension again on your board), stops the access token your iPhone shortcuts send with (make a new one and paste it into them) and stops notifications on iPhones until you sign in there again. It also turns off Sign in with Apple and the AI assistants connected to your board (turn them on again on the Account page).

The access token for shortcuts. iPhone shortcuts can't type a password, so they send with a long token instead: ☰ Settings → Account → Access token for shortcuts → Make a new token (it asks for your password). It only sends what your shortcuts send: it opens nothing of your board, so a copy of it shows nobody anything. It is shown once, when you make it (the board keeps only a fingerprint of it), and a new one stops the old: paste it into each shortcut again. Changing or resetting your password stops it too. It does not sign you in: Use an access token on the sign-in page is only for a first sign-in, before an account has a password.

Sign in with Apple: turn it on once, signed in, under Settings → Account → Sign in with Apple, in the iPhone app or on the board (it asks for your password, then Apple's page); from then on Continue with Apple on the sign-in page opens your board, in the iPhone app with Face ID and in a browser through Apple's page. Turned on in one, it works in both. Apple only tells the board which Apple ID it is; the board keeps nothing else of it. Turn off on the same row ends it, and so does changing or resetting your password. On the board it shows once the person who runs the server has set it up.

Too many wrong tries lock signing in for that address for fifteen minutes.

Removing things, and deleting your account

• A connection: ☰ Settings → Sources → ⋯ → Remove connection. Its key is forgotten and the items it saved are deleted. Past chats and briefings that quoted them are kept (the confirmation says so).
• A Google account: ☰ Settings → Connected accounts → remove (the first account too). The board's access is withdrawn at Google and what was synced from that account is deleted.
• A linked website: its row under Linked websites → Remove: what was learned, the recordings, its section and its cards.
• A card: Take off the board hides it; the data stays until you remove its connection.
• A message: Unsend; its words are deleted for everyone.

Deleting your account

☰ Settings → Account → Delete my account (in the iPhone app: Settings → Account). Type your password to confirm (if you never set one, type your email address). Everything is deleted at once: your board, every record, card, chat and briefing, every connection and its keys, your linked websites, your Google access (withdrawn at Google too), your friends and groups, and the messages you wrote. You are signed out everywhere, and a goodbye mail goes to your address if it is confirmed (by your invite, a Google sign-in with it, or the confirmation mail). The person who runs the board is told that you left. It cannot be undone.

Who can see my data

• Only you see your board, plus what you choose to share with friends, a group or your link (Friends). Other people on the server have their own boards and never see yours.
• The person who runs the server looks after it and can, technically, reach its database, which holds everything on your board, your keys and passwords for connections, and your messages. They do so only to keep the board running. Messages are not end-to-end encrypted.
• The assistant (Anthropic's Claude): when you ask a question, when your briefing is written, when something you asked it to watch is checked, when a linked website is learned and when payments are sorted into categories, the passages of your data needed for that are sent to Anthropic to produce the answer. Anthropic does not use them to train its models.
• Logos on your board are fetched by the server from icon services, so they never learn who looks at them. Pictures in news stories and items are loaded from the site that published them.
• A linked website: what the extension recorded is kept on the server with passwords, cookies and tokens removed, and the assistant reads it that way. Your session for the site is kept on the server separately and is never shown to the assistant.
• iPhone notifications go through Apple and say who wrote or asked, never what a message says.

The full statement — what is stored, where, the outside services involved and how long logs are kept — is at /privacy.