One habit,
read from your own data.
The whole method, in the order you would meet it. Every number on this page is one the app can actually produce, and every quoted line is what it really says.
You name it
before you meet Pal.
Five acts, thirty-five screens at most — one fewer if you decline Apple Health, because Pal will not narrate reading data it cannot see.
- Act 0
Before anything is asked
A colourless Pal settles in and says it is glad you are here. Then one screen of what the two of you are going to do.
- Act 1
You name the bad habit
Six cards, then one question: which is most urgent. Four short questions about that one habit, in your own words, and a single acknowledgement.
- Act 2
You make Pal
You draw it, colour it, watch it come alive, and name it. This happens before any health data is read.
- Act 3
It reads, then tells you
The consent screen, the real queries, and the number — paired in the same breath with what it could not measure.
- Act 4
You build the plan together
Your pace, your first milestone, tonight's start time, and a promise in your own words that you sign.
Pick anything that sounds like you. I’ll start with one.
The one-at-a-time rule, in the app’s own words. The habits you pick and do not start are kept as a backlog rather than discarded: “I’ll build your first program around this one. The rest keep their place.”
It would rather say nothing
than say something it guessed.
There is no bedtime signal on an iPhone. Rather than derive one and be wrong, the engine counts what it measured — hours asleep — and names the gap out loud.
- 01A night under three hours is not a short nightIt is dropped from both sides of the ratio — a watch that died is not evidence of anything.
- 02Naps are droppedOne main night per waking day, and nothing else counts as a night.
- 03Under seven measured nights, no number at allNot a smaller number, not a hedged one. None, and it says why.
- 04The sentence never escalatesThe wording is identical at three nights and at twelve. Only the digit differs, so it stays evidence rather than a verdict.
I don’t have enough measured yet to put a number on this, and I won’t invent one. What you told me is real, and it’s enough to start tonight.
What it says when it has not earned a number. One line, the same for all six habits — at that point there is nothing habit-specific that would still be true.
- 7
- nights measured, minimum
- 6
- hours — the short-night line
- 3
- hours — below this, not a night
- 7,500
- steps — a day you moved
It reads.
It does not write.
WellPal asks Apple Health for read access and nothing else — the share set it requests is empty, so there are zero things it is able to change.
- ReadWellPal only reads your Apple Health, never changes it.
- KeepWhat Pal learns about you lives on your iPhone.
- EraseYou can read, edit, or erase what Pal learns, anytime.
The consent screen’s own words, shown before Apple’s dialog rather than after it. Alongside them, on its own line: “WellPal never sells your data. Not to anyone.”
Your sleep, steps, energy, and heart. Read-only.
To find patterns it sends a short summary off the phone — numbers, not history, and never your name or contact details. In the app’s own example: four hours of sleep, 4,200 steps, a resting heart rate of 72.
It arrives at the hour
the habit goes wrong.
Not in the morning, when a reminder is easy to send and useless. Almost every step has a shorter version — a minute or two — and exactly one step per program is never offered as skippable.
Scroll the table →
| Habit | When it runs | Steps | The step it never skips | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Late-night scrolling | Evening | 4 | Park the phone | 28 nights |
| Sleep earlier | Evening | 5 | Lights out | 66 nights |
| Move more often | Your session time | 4 | The workout | 42 days |
| Steady energy | Across the day | 4 | Daylight after waking | 28 days |
| Wake on time | Evening, then morning | 4 | Up at the first alarm | 42 days |
| Late caffeine | Afternoon into evening | 3 | Afternoon swap | 21 days |
Six programs, as authored. The step that is never offered as skippable is hand-picked per program, because given a free choice people drop the hard step — and in behaviour change the hard step is the one doing the work.
Let’s tuck the phone in on its charger. It’s done for today.
Each step has a title for the list and a line Pal actually says. The two are different on purpose: a title that reads fine in a plan can sound like an order at eleven at night.
A missed night
is drawn as a quiet night.
Not a break, not a cross, not a lost streak. The words missed, failed, broken and behind are banned from the app's copy, and the drawing follows the words.
- 01Miss one and the run holds. The next night I offer you the 2 minute version.
- 02Miss again and one of your 2 freezes covers it.
- 03Your first 7 clean nights earn you one repair. If a run breaks while you’re holding it, you have 3 days to bring it back.
- 04What you have already done stays done, either way.
Shown before you commit, not after you slip. Forgiveness never asks why.
Reaching the number
is not the same as changing.
A streak is a record of what you did, not proof the habit runs on its own. So at the end of the program WellPal asks one question, and takes your answer for it.
“Before we call it changed: did the wind-down mostly run on its own this week, without you pushing it?”
Answer “not yet” and nothing is lost — the sequence keeps running and it asks again in a week.
“I put a trophy in my room for this one. It never comes down.”
“This one holds on its own now. Where should we look next?”
The next habit comes from your own logged days, or from what you flagged at the very start.