Talk to your butler

What you’ll do: reply to your butler and watch it act.

Steps

1. Open the latest email from your butler.

2. Click Reply. Delete nothing, just type at the top:

   add milk to shopping

3. Send it.

4. Wait up to five minutes. Your butler checks its inbox every five minutes.

5. A confirmation arrives, sent to all the adults: something like “Added milk to Shopping.”

6. Open Reminders on your Mac or phone. Milk is on the Shopping list.

What you’ll do: try a few kinds of request, so you know what your butler can do.

Write the way you’d text a family member. Several requests in one reply are fine.

You write	Your butler
add milk and eggs to shopping	Adds each item to Shopping
remind me to call the plumber	Adds a to-do to your butler’s list
dentist for Mia Thursday at 10	Adds a calendar event
done: school visit	Marks a project step done (Module 8)
waiting on the clinic until the 20th	Marks a step as waiting, and brings it back on the 20th
Pat is off sick next week	Remembers it as a household note
less sport in the news please	Saves your feedback about the brief (Module 10)
what’s on Thursday?	Answers your question by email

Try it

Reply to your butler with three requests at once. For example:

add bin bags to shopping remind me to book the car service what’s on this weekend?

What you’ll do: understand the two locks on your butler’s inbox. Nothing to click.

Anyone in the world can send an email to your butler’s address. So how does it know an order really came from you?

Lock one: the trusted list

Your butler only acts on emails from the addresses you gave it in Module 5. Everything else is ignored.

Lock two: the seal

Anyone can write any “From” address on an email, the way anyone can write any return address on an envelope. So your butler also checks a digital seal called DKIM. Your email provider stamps it on every message you send, and only your provider can make that stamp. If the seal is missing or doesn’t match your address, your butler ignores the email.

And the menu

Even a genuine email from you can only do the things on the menu from the last lesson. Nothing deletes.

What you’ll do: make an iPhone shortcut so you can say “Hey Siri, tell Bento…” and your words go straight to your butler.

Steps

1. On your iPhone, open the Shortcuts app.
2. Tap + to make a new shortcut.
3. Tap Add Action, search for Dictate Text, and tap it.
4. Tap the search bar again, search for Send Email, and tap it.
5. In the Send Email action:
   • Recipients: your butler’s Gmail address.
   • Subject: your butler’s name.
   • Message: tap it and choose Dictated Text.
6. Tap the small arrow on the Send Email action, and switch Show Compose Sheet off.
7. Name the shortcut Tell Bento, using your butler’s name.
8. Try it: “Hey Siri, Tell Bento.” When it listens, say “add eggs to shopping”.

What you’ll do: make sure every adult gets the brief and can reply.

Steps

1. If you sent the first brief only to yourself, check every adult is on the list:

2. Ask each adult to reply once with something small, like “add bananas to shopping”, so they’ve done it themselves.
3. Tell them the three rules: write in plain words, one request per line, and the butler confirms within five minutes.