Inspiration
So, I use the Notes app a lot, and I also have a lot of ChatGPT conversations. The problem is that even though all of those things are inside apps, they still feel decentralized. None of them really centralize the different versions of my thinking states.
I think that is a real problem and pain point. It keeps people disorganized, it is hard to keep track of things, and people rarely go back to their notes. The notes just become stagnant. Selves is my way of giving life to those stagnant notes.
So, having stories made from your notes, and having individual Selves dedicated to the type of thinking state you are in, is why I was inspired to build this.
I also recently built another iOS app, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to take what I learned and build another iOS app.
In addition, for people who are not neurotypical and need or like things to be organized, I think this could help that class of people too.
What it does
Selves is pretty much a private iPhone journal that sorts every single note you take into a part of you.
It creates the Self for you, and then it organizes and sorts the note into that Self. You can watch the stories of your Selves as time goes on. You can communicate with that Self, export your data, and connect the app to Codex through the plugin.
Each Self also has its own personalized character. And, yeah, the user stays in control. You can correct where a note was placed, export everything, or delete it.
How I built it
I built it using SwiftUI and Codex with GPT-5.6.
I used GPT-5.6 Sol Medium to build it, and I also ideated the idea with the GPT-5.6 Sol model in Codex. Codex helped me build the iOS app, work through the design, connect the audio, create the QR pairing flow, build the plugin, test things, and get all of the different parts integrated.
How judges can try it
The public repository includes the full iOS source and setup instructions. Judges can test the real pairing plugin and authenticate it with a device.
They can also test the plugin, QR code, and authenticated local service without rebuilding the iPhone app: npm --prefix server ci npm --prefix server run judge:check
Challenges
The hardest part of this challenge was, I guess, the creativity and ideation part.
Building different tools and different applications has become a lot easier. But I think it is important to know that you should not just create things for the sake of creating them.
You should have someone you are targeting, or a group you are targeting, and you should be building things people actually want.
So, building something people could actually want, and doing that in the short Build Week time span, was probably the hardest part.
What I learned
What I learned from this is that you need to have all of the parts outlined before you try to integrate everything.
It is not enough to have a bunch of individual parts working. You need to have all of the parts you want to build outlined, and then they need to be properly integrated into one experience.
That is also why I changed the main Selves experience. Now, you can take one note and a Self is created immediately. The idea proves itself right away instead of making the user wait.
What's next
I want to keep improving how Selves sorts notes, test it with more people and more types of thinking, and keep making the different parts feel like one complete experience.
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