iOS Shortcuts

Ayumi exposes App Intents that you can chain inside the iOS Shortcuts app to build your own recording and entry-creation flows. The tips below are practical patterns we recommend for everyday voice journaling.

Available actions

When you build a Shortcut, search for “Ayumi” to see these actions:

Action	What it does
Create Entry	Creates a new entry from text input. Location and weather are captured automatically.
Create Audio Entry	Queues an audio file for transcription and creates an entry when processing finishes. Supports custom prompt presets and model overrides.
Start Recording	Opens Ayumi and starts recording audio. Required to foreground briefly — see the note below.
Stop Recording	Stops the in-progress recording and queues it for transcription. Runs entirely in the background.

Tip 1 — Record in the background while you keep using your phone

Build a Shortcut with two actions, in order:

1. Start Recording (Ayumi)
2. Go to Home Screen (System)

Tapping this Shortcut starts recording in Ayumi and immediately drops you back to the Home Screen, so you can keep using your phone, walk around, or pocket it while the recording continues. The Live Activity in the Dynamic Island shows the recording is still running and lets you stop it from there. You can also build a separate Shortcut that runs Stop Recording for hands-free stopping.

Microphone permission caveat

The first action briefly foregrounds Ayumi, then Go to Home Screen runs automatically — this is intentional. iOS will not grant microphone access during a true headless launch, even with the audio background mode enabled, so the app must come to the foreground long enough to activate AVAudioSession. Once recording is running, the audio session keeps going while you use other apps. This is an iOS platform constraint, not an Ayumi limitation.

Tip 2 — Trigger recording with a hardware button

Pair the Shortcut from Tip 1 with a hardware button so you can start recording from anywhere on the OS without unlocking into the Shortcuts app.

• Action Button (iPhone 15 Pro and later): Settings → Action Button → swipe to Shortcut → choose your “Start Recording” Shortcut. One press starts recording.
• Back Tap (any iPhone with iOS 14+): Settings → Accessibility → Touch → Back Tap → Double Tap or Triple Tap → choose the Shortcut.

Combined with Tip 1, this gives you a single hardware press that starts recording and returns you to whatever you were doing.

Tip 3 — Use Apple’s native transcription instead of Gemini

Ayumi’s built-in transcription uses Gemini, but you don’t have to use it. The Shortcuts app has a built-in Transcribe Audio action that you can pipe into Ayumi’s Create Entry action instead.

Build a Shortcut like:

1. Record Audio (System) — or pass in an existing audio file
2. Transcribe Audio (System)
3. Create Entry (Ayumi) — with the transcribed text as input

Which transcription should you use?

	Native (Transcribe Audio)	Ayumi (Gemini)
Fidelity	Faithful to spoken words	Shaped by your prompt preset
Customization	Fixed output	Custom prompt presets (summary, reflection, structured journaling)
Connectivity	On-device	Requires a Gemini API key and network
Best for	Quick verbatim memos	Reflective journaling, summarization, formatted output

Pick the pipeline that fits the moment — both can coexist as separate Shortcuts. Use native transcription when you want exactly what you said, and use Ayumi’s Gemini-powered transcription when you want the AI to reshape it for your journal.