What Zaru shows you about every step it takes, and how to stop one

Disclosure: Zaru is built by 100monkeys AI, Inc., so read this guide as a maker's account. It was drafted by one of our AI agents from the wording on this site and reviewed by the company. Every promise quoted below is the site's own sentence. Where the site does not say what a screen shows or how a control works, we say so rather than describe it.

Most AI asks you to trust it. Zaru's answer is to show you: "Each step appears in the chat as Zaru takes it, in plain words." This guide is about reading those steps well, knowing which ones wait for you, and using your answer to stop the ones you do not want.

What the site promises, in its own words

"Zaru handles your email, calendar and web research. You watch each step as it happens, and nothing gets sent until you say yes."
"Connect your email and calendar, and Zaru reads, drafts and plans in them. It searches the web and runs code in a sandbox."
"Anything that sends a message or changes your calendar waits for your yes."

Two kinds of step follow from that. Some Zaru takes on its own and shows you as it goes: reading, searching, drafting, planning, running code in its sandbox. Others act on the world on your behalf, sending a message or changing your calendar, and those wait. By default, nothing is sent until you say yes; the last step of this guide shows how to confirm that on your own account.

Step 1. Create a free account

Press Get Zaru free. In the site's words: "Free plan. No card. Just your name and email." Zaru is in beta, and anyone who registers gets the Free plan right away. The sign-in page also offers Sign in with Google.

Step 2. Read what Zaru already knows about you

Before you watch it work, look at what it works from. "Zaru saves what matters about you as you talk: how you write, what you care about, what you keep explaining. Open Settings > Memory to read every word of it, change it, or start over." A step that surprises you later often traces back to a line here, so this is the first place to look and the first place to fix.

Step 3. Give it a task with several steps, and watch

Pick something that needs reading, a decision and a draft, so you see each kind of step. For example:

Find the last three emails from my accountant, tell me what each one asks of me, and draft one reply that answers all three.

As it works, the steps arrive in the chat in plain words. Read them for three things:

What it looked at. Which messages it read, or which pages it searched. If it looked in the wrong place, the answer will be wrong however well it is written.
What it concluded. The step where it decides what each email asks. This is where a wrong assumption shows.
What it produced. The draft itself, which waits for you.

Step 4. Know which steps wait for you

When Zaru reaches a step that sends a message or changes your calendar, it stops and asks. The site's FAQ, on whether it can send without asking, answers: "No. Sending an email or changing your calendar waits for your approval, and each step Zaru takes shows up in the chat as it happens."

Read the draft as it will be sent, not the summary of it. The approval is only worth something if you read what you approve.

Step 5. Stop a step you do not want

For the steps that act on the world, your answer is the stop. A message is not sent and a calendar event is not changed until you say yes, so if the draft is wrong, or the meeting should not move, do not give it. Say what to change instead, and Zaru works from your correction; read the new version before you approve it.

For the steps Zaru takes on its own, such as a search or a run of code in its sandbox, the site does not describe a stop button or a way to cancel a step already under way, so we do not claim one. What the site does give you is the record: every one of those steps is shown in the chat, and nothing it drafts is sent without your yes.

Step 6. Correct the cause, not only the step

If you stopped a step because Zaru misread something about you, such as who matters in your inbox or how you sign your emails, fix it where Zaru keeps it: Settings > Memory, "to read every word of it, change it, or start over." The next run starts from the correction rather than repeating the mistake.

Step 7. The same rule on a schedule

Zaru also runs scheduled workflows, such as a morning pass over your inbox. The site's sentence for them: "It runs as you, and anything it would send still asks for your yes, just as in the chat." A scheduled run leaves its drafts waiting for you, so the stop in Step 5 works the same way when you were not watching.

Step 8. Test it on yourself before you rely on it

Approval before sending is the default this guide assumes. Before you trust it with your clients, ask Zaru to email you, and confirm it stops and asks before the message leaves. Then decline, and confirm nothing arrived.

What this site does not say

A stop or cancel control for a step already running, as noted in Step 5.
Whether past steps can be searched or exported after the conversation.
Which email and calendar providers can be connected, and what the connection screen shows.

The Zaru harness, zaru-cli, is open source under Apache-2.0, and the AEGIS Orchestrator underneath it is open source under AGPL-3.0. The web app at ask.myzaru.com is not open source.

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Get Zaru free