How it works
Each time an app is about to answer you, KAPEX is asked one thing: what about this person matters for this reply.
Around each reply
KAPEX does its work on either side of the reply. The reply itself belongs to the app.
- Before the reply. The app asks KAPEX what it holds about you that matters for this message. KAPEX hands back a short note in plain sentences, kept under a size limit so the conversation still has room.
- The reply. The app’s own model answers the way it normally would, with the note in front of it.
- After the reply. The app sends KAPEX the new turn, meaning what you said and what the app said back. KAPEX picks out who and what the turn is about. It reads the app’s side too, so something the app said can end up among what’s kept.
KAPEX doesn’t ask you before it keeps a turn. Telling you the app remembers, and asking first, is up to the app.
What it keeps
It keeps what you would want a friend to keep. Names, plans, the things you care about.
To do that, it holds on to the words of each conversation, filed under each person and topic it picks out. Before each reply the app gets a short note drawn from them, not the conversations themselves.
Your dad is one person, whatever you call him
If you say “my dad” one day and “Father” the next, it treats them as the same person.
The same goes for the other usual ways of naming the people close to you, like mom, my sister or my boss. It works from those familiar English words, so now and then it will join two people who should have stayed apart. That’s part of why you can open what it keeps and fix it.
Monday.
Me: My dad is coming over on Sunday to help hang shelves.
Thursday.
Me: Father says he’s bringing his own drill.
App: Good, so your dad has the drill covered. Do you still need wall anchors before Sunday?
Friday.
Me: My friend’s dad is lending me his ladder for the shelves.
Written to show the intent, not captured from a running system.
Check your answer
All three.
“My dad” and “Father” are the same person, your dad. Filing those two together is right.
“My friend’s dad” is someone else’s father. That line went under yours anyway, because the word was “dad.”
That’s the slip the paragraph above warns about.
What the model is handed
The note is written for the model to read, in plain sentences. When KAPEX writes the note itself, it marks what it isn’t sure of, so the app can ask you instead of assuming. When an app builds the note from KAPEX’s list instead, that marking is up to the app.
We built a check for two things you said that don’t agree, like two different answers about where your sister lives. It’s switched off by default, so the note doesn’t point those out.
The developer page says which calls get a note like this, and what the others hand back.
It asks first
It asks before it brings something up.
When you ask it to leave something alone, it stops handing that to the app. How you ask is up to the app: a button on a settings screen, or a sentence in the conversation that the app recognizes. Either way, it’s the app that passes the request to KAPEX.
Leaving something alone isn’t deleting it, and you can take the request back. The control page shows the difference.
What the model is handed, for one message
You write
Me: Can you help me plan the birthday dinner?
Before it answers, the app asks KAPEX what matters about this person for this message.
The note
A note KAPEX wrote for the app
- Background. Moved into a new apartment, unpacking the kitchen first.
- Partial, may be wrong. Cooking for a friend’s birthday, probably Saturday. Stay open to correction.
- Ask, don’t assume. Mentioned a sister, no details.
The old neighborhood isn’t in the note, because the person asked for it to be left alone.
The reply
App: Happy to. Is it still Saturday, and at your new place?
The note said the day might be wrong, so the reply asks.
Then the app sends KAPEX what you said and what it answered.
The part we keep to ourselves
How KAPEX weighs one thing against another isn’t on this site. This page shows what it does and leaves out how it decides.
If you’re building with it and need more, write to us.
Under any model
KAPEX sits outside the model. An app can change the model it answers with, and nothing KAPEX holds about you has to move, because none of it lives in the model.
KAPEX does use a model of its own, to work out who and what each turn is about. That one is separate from the app’s, so changing either leaves the other alone. It comes from an outside provider, set up by whoever runs KAPEX, so text from each turn passes through it.
A work project
Monday.
Me: We picked the blue packaging for the spring launch. The printer needs files by Friday.
Wednesday, after the team moved the app to a different model.
Me: What did we decide about packaging?
App: Blue, for the spring launch. The printer wants files by Friday. Should I draft the note to them?
Switching models did not change the note, so it did not change the answer.
Written to show the intent, not captured from a running system.
What it is not
KAPEX is the memory behind an app. The people who make the app decide how it talks to you.
It doesn’t write the replies. Those come from the app’s own model, in the voice its makers chose, and the screens where you look at and change what is kept are theirs to build as well. If an app talks to you in a way you don’t like, its makers are the people to tell.
Get in touch
That’s the whole loop. The developer page shows the two calls.