Tell a story is how the stories your family half-remembers — the boat story, how the grandparents met, the legend that gets retold a little differently every Thanksgiving — get told once, properly, in the teller's own voice, and kept.
One teller, one story, one artifact. You talk; Haklo writes it down; you read your own words back and fix what was misheard; and when it's yours, you share it. It lands in your family's Record as a story, told by you, with your voice attached if you chose to keep it.
How to tell one
From Home, tap Tell a story. You'll find three ways in:
- A request someone made of you. If a family member asked you for a story, it's waiting at the top with their name on it. Tell it — or pass, which is always allowed.
- A prompt. Haklo keeps a small library of starters in three flavors — Origin (how things began), Legend (the stories that get retold), and Did you know (the things the kids never heard).
- No prompt. Just talk. The story you already know you want to tell.
The recording screen is deliberately calm: one prompt, one big button, and room. Starting over is free — if the first take doesn't feel right, re-take it as many times as you like; nothing is kept until you finish. Stories can run long: around the fifteen-minute mark Haklo gently offers that you can stop and tell the rest another day, but it never cuts you off.
If you walk away mid-way, your draft waits for you — drafts never expire into publication. Only you can see a draft.
You review before anyone else sees it
When you finish, Haklo transcribes the recording and hands the words back to you first. This review step is where the story becomes yours:
- Read your own words and fix anything the machine misheard — Haklo flags the spots it's least sure about.
- Title it, or let the title default to the prompt you answered.
- Tag who it's about. If the story names someone in your family, Haklo asks you to tag them before you can share — so they know it was told. Tagged family members are notified when you share; they aren't asked for permission, but they can always ask you to take it down.
- Decide about your voice. By default the recording stays with the story so the family can hear it in your voice. Choose "words only" and the audio is deleted when you share.
Nothing leaves this screen without one explicit act: Share. Until then, the story doesn't exist for anyone but you.
What sharing does
Two things, and Haklo says so before you confirm: your family can listen and read it, and it goes into the Record as a story, told by you. Anyone in the family can open it — the teller's name, the date, the prompt it answered, a play button if the voice was kept, and the words as said.
A shared story is still the teller's. Only the teller can take a story back — doing so removes it from the Record, and the recording is deleted. If a story is about you and you'd rather it not be up, ask the teller; the ask is built in.
Asking someone for a story
Anyone in the family can request a story by name — "Ask Grandpa to tell the boat story." The request lands gently on that person's phone with your name on it, and it's always free to decline; you'll simply see that they passed. No story, no hard feelings.
The honest details
- Recording a story is part of Haklo Plus. Listening is free — every family member can read and listen to every shared story, on any tier.
- Adults only, for now. While stories are new, only adults in the family can record one. Kids and teens can ask for stories and listen to every one that's shared.
- Transcription happens in the cloud. The audio is sent to a transcription service we choose carefully and comes back as text — to you first, nobody else.
- Haklo never writes your story. The words are what you said plus your own edits. No AI drafting, no AI titles, no polish you didn't do.
- Coaching never reads your stories. Stories aren't fed into Haklo's AI coaching, and asking the Record a question won't surface them either. They're for your family's ears, not the machine's.