Hey all - sharing an app I've been building called Mechanly.

The framing that finally clicked for me: your phone is already a server. It has compute, it has network, it stays online, and the part that matters is it's the only device that holds your logged-in sessions. WhatsApp Web. LinkedIn. Reddit. Amazon. Your bank. Your calendar. Your Slack.

Today, scheduling AI work is a desktop/web concept. ChatGPT Tasks runs in the cloud, Claude's scheduled tasks live in the desktop app, OpenClaw-style rigs need a workstation kept awake. Your phone is a notification receiver, never the runtime.

Mechanly flips that. You write a task on your phone, schedule it on your phone, and it runs on your phone, against your real logged-in sessions. The screen can be off, the device can be sitting on your nightstand; the only condition is that the phone is on, which it almost always is. No desktop, no VM, no server to host.

What it does

You describe a job in plain English. Mechanly saves it as a Mech, a recurring delegated task, and runs it on your schedule. Results come back as a notification with only what matters.

A few real Mechs:

• Every morning at 7, read my WhatsApp group chats and tell me if anything actually needs my reply.
• Check my LinkedIn DMs at noon and draft replies to anything that needs one.
• Watch r/Android daily for posts about [product].
• Track this price every day and ping me if it drops.

What's in the app

• Composer: write a Mech in plain English, pick a schedule, done.
• Browser: a real WebView that drives sites using your logged-in sessions. It sees what you see.
• 31 phone tools: calendar, contacts, alarms, apps, files, media. Reads and writes the phone itself, not just the web.
• Notification Insights: "what did I miss?" returns a categorized triage across Slack, Gmail, WhatsApp, Calendar, sorted by urgency.
• Approvals: every action is previewed before it runs. Allow per-chat, allow globally, or deny.

Where it's headed

Alpha is intentionally narrow. I didn't want to build everything at once before hearing what people actually want. Things I'm planning to shape around feedback:

• Custom dashboards for your favorite sites: pull only what's relevant to you, not the whole page.
• Mini-apps built around a Mech: e.g. a stripped-down chat UI dedicated to just a handful of people, or a Mech you can drop on your home screen as an Android widget.
• Attached context: give a Mech your notes, your tone samples, or any reference material so its draft replies to your emails and messages actually sound like you and reflect what's going on in your life.

Alpha

Completely free during the feedback phase. Every feature unlocked, no ads, no paywalls. (Your effective usage limits will depend on the AI provider you bring, e.g. a free ChatGPT account behaves differently from Plus.)

How to join the alpha

1. Join the Google Group: https://groups.google.com/g/mechanly
2. Then download from the closed-testing track: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/app.ijp.mechanly

(Step 1 is required first, Google Play gates closed-testing access to group members.)

Happy to dig into architecture or design choices in the comments.

Most AI tools today are great when you ask them something.

But the moment you stop interacting, they stop too.

That is where things start to feel limited.

So I tried building something different:

An AI assistant that runs on your Android phone
It keeps working even when your screen is off
It does not need you to keep opening it

What this means in everyday use

Instead of constantly checking apps yourself, the assistant can:

• Check things for you in the background
• Run on a schedule like every few minutes or every morning
• Work with apps you are already logged into
• Keep going without needing new prompts

Real-life examples

• Wake up and get a summary of your WhatsApp groups
• Get notified when something important shows up on LinkedIn
• Ask “what did I miss today” and get a cross-app summary
• Monitor something and only alert you when it matters

Why this feels different

Most AI tools today are smart, but only when you use them.

This is more like something that keeps working quietly for you all the time.

Simple way to think about it

AI is the brain
Your phone is where it runs continuously

Curious what people here would do with this

If an AI could run all the time on your phone:

• What would you want it to keep track of
• What would you automate daily
• Where would this feel risky or annoying

I have a small Android alpha running and can share access with a few people who want to try it.

Most agent tools, including ChatGPT Atlas, are strong at reasoning and orchestrating tasks. But they fall short when workflows depend on:

• logged-in sessions like WhatsApp Web, LinkedIn, internal dashboards
• long-running or scheduled execution
• acting continuously on your real accounts

So I built a different runtime:

Atlas-style agent logic, but execution happens on your Android phone in the background

What makes this Atlas-like

• Natural language to workflows
• Tool calling via MCP
• Cross-app reasoning using notifications and activity

The key difference: it keeps running

• Works with the screen off
• Supports scheduled jobs (every N minutes, daily, etc.)
• Uses your already authenticated sessions
• Continues running without active input

This is closer to a persistent agent than a request-response system

Example use cases

• “Every morning summarize my WhatsApp groups and suggest replies”
• Monitor LinkedIn inbox and draft responses
• Watch internal dashboards and trigger alerts
• Cross-app “what did I miss” summaries

Why this matters

Atlas-style systems are powerful, but they are mostly foreground and break on auth boundaries.

This approach:

• removes API dependency
• enables always-on workflows
• runs inside your real user context

Mental model

ChatGPT Atlas as the reasoning layer
Android phone as the runtime, memory, and authentication layer

Looking for feedback

If Atlas could run continuously in the background on your device:

• what workflows would you automate
• what would you monitor
• where would this break

I have a small Android alpha running and can share access with a few people who want to test it.