Siri Thought Capture

2026-05-20#tech0

On a walk. Have a thought. Don't want to stop and type. Don't want to lose it.

The flow

  1. "Hey Siri, thought: contact form is just comments without the post"
  2. Siri Shortcut fires: POST /tube/thought/capture?text=contact+form+is+just+comments+without+the+post&origin=walk
  3. CloudFront logs it. 202. Done.
  4. Back at the machine: grep the logs for thought/capture. Turn the good ones into journal entries.

Same pattern as comments, contact form, deploy events. A URL, a log entry, grep later.

From the watch

Apple Watch Ultra — the Action Button maps directly to a Siri Shortcut. Press the button, dictate, done. No "Hey Siri," no complication tap, no phone needed. One physical button press to capture a thought into the log. The watch has cellular, hits the URL directly.

The shortcut

  1. Shortcuts app → new shortcut named "thought"
  2. Action: Dictate Text (or take Siri input)
  3. Action: Get Contents of URL → https://thetube.today/tube/thought/capture?text=[dictated text]&origin=watch
  4. Done. No app to build. No backend. The shortcut is the app.

Why not Apple Notes

Apple Notes works but it's a silo. The thought is trapped in iCloud until you manually copy it out. Hitting a URL puts it in the same log as everything else — same grep, same MCP reader, same workflow. One namespace.

The origin field

origin=walk or origin=watch or origin=bike. When you grep later, you know where the thought came from. The frontmatter origin: field in journal entries maps directly to this.

Share Sheet

The same shortcut appears in the iOS Share Sheet. Any app that can share text or URLs can feed the log:

  • Safari → share a URL. type=bookmark&url=...&title=...
  • Text selection → share highlighted text from any app. type=quote&text=...&source=app
  • Photos → share an image. type=image&description=... (the image itself doesn't hit the URL — just the metadata. The photo stays in iCloud. The log records that you flagged it.)
  • Maps → share a location. type=place&name=...&lat=...&lng=...
  • Voice Memos → share a recording. type=audio&title=... (same — log the event, not the file)

Each type maps to a different URL path: /tube/thought/capture, /tube/bookmark/capture, /tube/place/capture. Or one path with a type parameter. Either way — it's a POST, it's logged, grep later.

The Share Sheet is the input layer. The log is the storage. The MCP reader is the query layer. Same architecture, different entry point.

Verified

Built the shortcuts. Fired them from Mac and phone. Checked the CloudFront logs:

14:12  DFW (phone)  type=thought&text=
14:35  DFW (phone)  type=bookmark&url=https://thetube.today/posts/siri-thought-capture
14:57  IAD (Mac)    type=bookmark&origin=mac&url=https://www.google.com/search?q=we...

All 202s. Both devices, both shortcut types, logged at the edge. The empty text= is from the Dictate action exiting immediately on Mac — it doesn't work well there. On the phone it works. The wiring is proven.

Lessons from the GUI:

  • Shortcuts doesn't have a file format. No CLI, no import. The GUI is the only authoring surface.
  • "Show in Share Sheet" doesn't sync between Mac and phone — you toggle it on each device.
  • The Share Sheet on Mac was greyed out until Safari was quit and reopened.
  • Dictate Text works on phone/watch, not Mac. Use "Ask for Input" on Mac.
  • The variable pill has to be inserted from the suggestions bar, not typed as text.
  • One shortcut for phone/watch (Dictate), bookmarklet for Mac. Different input, same endpoint.
The journey

Walk thought (meta). Tried "Hey Siri, remind me when I get home" — works but the reminder is a dead end. A Siri Shortcut that hits a URL puts the thought in the same log as everything else. Same grep, same MCP, same namespace. Works from the watch too — crown action, dictate, done.

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