Habits overview

Habits are tasks you've taught Plainwork to do for you. You show it the task once on your own apps, and it learns the exact steps, repeating them on the schedule you choose — clicking, typing, and reading on your behalf.

The lifecycle

1. Teach. Click + Teach Habit, do the task once, and name it. Plainwork watches what you click and type and turns it into repeatable steps. See Teaching a habit.
2. Schedule. Pick when it runs: Manually, every day, weekdays, or a custom schedule.
3. Run. Plainwork replays the steps on your machine. Saving a scheduled habit allows that exact version to run automatically on the current Mac.
4. Approve. Plainwork asks before every manual run. A new or changed scheduled version also asks once: choose Run once or Always run this version. Irreversible actions, like sending a message or deleting a file, keep their own approval gate.

Where habits run

On your computer, through the same apps you used to teach them, not a cloud copy of them. Reading and clicking happen in the background. An app that has to come to the front (to play music, say) is brought up and, if Plainwork opened it, closed again afterward.

Where habits are saved

Your habit library is saved to your Plainwork account, so the habits you teach, their steps, schedule, and whether they're paused, follow you to every device you sign into. Each account has its own local copy on the device, so signing into a different account never mixes their habits. The copy keeps running offline and automatically retries anything still waiting to sync when you're back online. Only these definitions and each run's redacted log sync. The raw activity Plainwork learns from — clicks and their control labels, typing activity, and app switches — never leaves your computer, and no picture of your screen is ever stored. See Recording & your data.

Automatic-run permission does not sync. Each Mac authorizes an exact protected habit version locally. If its steps, schedule, file access, app scripting access, or approval policy changes, Plainwork requires review again before it can run automatically. This prevents unauthorized or unwanted automatic runs with elevated privileges on your device.

Managing them

The habits list on the home screen shows every habit with its schedule, last run, and run / pause / delete controls. See Managing habits. Open a habit to rename it, read its steps, or change one. See Habit details.

What habits are not

• Not a cloud automation tool. There are no third-party logins and it drives your real apps.
• Not a branching workflow builder. One habit is one task, start to finish.