How to Use AuraLock: Every Feature, Step by Step

This is the full user guide. Each section covers one feature and the exact steps to use it. New here? Start with “Set up in five steps”. Looking for one specific thing? Jump straight to its section.

Set up AuraLock in five steps

Create an Aura

An Aura is a focused phone environment: a purpose, the apps that stay alive, a duration, and a boundary. The wizard asks one question per screen and previews the session as you build it.

1. Tap Create Aura on Home
2. Pick a purpose — Deep Work, Study, Health & Fitness, Family Time, Personal Time, or your own
3. Choose what stays alive — search your apps and tap the ones you need
4. Set a duration — Sprint 10m, Pomodoro 25m, Deep Work 45m, Flow 60m, or custom
5. Choose a boundary: Standard or Strict
6. Optionally add a schedule and a lock-screen style
7. Tap Enter Aura. If you chose Strict, confirm the commitment

Shortcuts: the Home screen also has one-tap presets — Quick Focus, Deep Work, and Power Hour — and saved sessions you can relaunch.

Choose what stays alive

AuraLock is keep-first: you choose what stays available rather than maintaining a list of things to remove.

• Open an existing Aura, or create one, and reach the app step
• Tap What Stays Alive and search your apps
• Tap an app to add it; tap again to remove it — a counter shows the total
• Ask “does this help me right now?” — if not, leave it out
• Mid-session in a Standard Aura, open the controls and choose Change allowed apps to adjust without ending the session

Your Focus Level sets the ceiling: 5 apps at levels 1–2, 8 from level 3, 12 from level 9. Launchers, keyboards, and system parts never count and can never be blocked. More detail in Choose what stays alive.

Standard vs Strict

• Standard — pause and resume, extend, change apps while running, and an Emergency Unlock behind a short math challenge plus a cooldown
• Strict — no pause, no early exit, and no emergency path at all; the app set is fixed once you start
• Switch the boundary per Aura — morning Standard, afternoon Strict, and each schedule remembers its own

There is deliberately no plain “End Aura” button during a session. In Standard, the only way out early is Emergency Unlock, tuned in Settings → Focus Defaults (difficulty and a 10-second to 5-minute wait). Full rules in Standard vs Strict.

Start, pause, extend, and end a session

1. Tap the Aura (or a preset) and confirm what stays alive
2. Tap Enter Aura — the persistent notification shows the remaining time
3. Open the session controls to Pause, Extend time (15/30/60), Change allowed apps, or review settings
4. Tap Return to Aura from the notification any time you wander off
5. When the timer ends, the session completes and a summary appears

Schedules (Rhythm)

A schedule makes an Aura appear on its own, so focus does not depend on remembering. You can have unlimited schedules.

1. Open an Aura and tap the schedule option
2. Set the start and end times and choose the days of the week
3. Choose automatic start or ask before starting
4. Save — AuraLock arms precise start and end alarms, plus a five-minute safety check
5. When the window opens: Enter Aura, Snooze, or Skip today

Templates like Deep Work Mornings and Evening Wind-Down give you a working schedule in one tap. More in Aura schedules.

Guardian — keep it reliable

Guardian is the health check that catches the silent failures. Run it after installing, after a device update, and any time an Aura behaves oddly.

1. Open Settings → Guardian (or the Guardian card on Home)
2. Let it read each permission and battery setting on your exact device
3. Fix anything flagged — each row has a one-tap action that opens the right system screen
4. Re-run it until everything is green

See Guardian for the full checklist.

Journal

1. After an Aura, respond to the quick prompt: a mood (Deep Focus, Flow, or Distracted) and an optional note
2. Open Settings → Journal to browse entries and search by keyword
3. Read the heatmap at the top to see which days you reflected most
4. Export everything from Settings → Data & Privacy → Export journal

You can turn the post-Aura prompt off, or set a reminder time, in Settings → Quick Toggles / Journal.

Goals & streaks

1. Open Settings → Goals & Streaks and set a daily focus target in minutes
2. Watch the Home goal card fill as you accumulate focus time
3. Meet the target to build a streak; the Goal Calendar marks met, missed, and freeze-protected days
4. Use a Streak Freeze on a day you miss (you can hold up to 5)

Focus XP & levels

Completing Auras earns Focus XP, which raises your level and unlocks more capacity — longer sessions, more staying-alive apps, and visual themes. XP only ever goes up.

• Base: 1 XP per 5 focused minutes (a session must reach 5 minutes)
• Strict session: +2 XP
• 30 minutes or longer: +3 XP
• Streak: +1 XP per 3 consecutive days, up to +5
• Tap the Focus Level card on Home to see your level, XP bar, and the next unlock

The full 15-level ladder, caps, and rewards are in Create your first Aura.

Analytics

Analytics shows what your protected time adds up to. Open the Analytics tab and use the top tabs to switch between Today, Week, Month, and All Time.

• Activity Breakdown — focus minutes per day as a bar chart
• App Activity — which apps interrupted you, and which you kept alive
• Focus & Goal Heatmaps — the days and hours you focus most
• Best Hours — your peak window, so you can schedule the work that matters there
• Screen Time — appears only if you granted Usage access

Home screen

1. Open Settings → Home Screen to toggle cards on or off
2. The greeting and Aura status always stay; every other card is optional
3. Turn on insight cards (mood, streak, unlocks, share) if you want them
4. Pull down on Home to refresh all data

Intentions

An Intention is a per-app answer to “why am I opening this?”. It is a question, not a habit tracker — no scores, no streaks.

1. Open Settings → Your Practice → Intentions (or just ask the Assistant)
2. Pick the apps you want a gate on
3. Choose a reason type — Connect, Create, Browse, or something specific — and a visit length
4. Optionally set a daily time budget and a personal message
5. The first time you open an app, answer once; after that it is one tap to continue or Change
6. When the window ends, answer one reflection and review “Why you use them”

Aura Moment

Aura Moment is a short, guided pause built around a breathing technique — a good way to reset between tasks.

1. Tap Take a moment on Home, or say it to the Assistant
2. Choose an intent — Calm, Focus, Clarity, Morning, Sleep, Reset
3. Pick a technique, a length, and a posture (or start the 1-minute reset)
4. Follow the orb as it expands and contracts; pause, go eyes-closed, or end any time
5. Finishing earns a small +10 Focus XP and an optional reflection

Aura Assistant

The Aura Assistant runs fully on your device — a deterministic parser, no cloud AI, no account, no internet. It can explain features and perform supported actions.

1. Open the Assistant from the Home header or Settings → Your Practice
2. Type in plain words — “focus for 45 minutes”, “set an alarm for 6:30 tomorrow”, “hide the mood chart”
3. Ask a question to be taught (“how do I start an Aura?”) or give a command to do it (“start an Aura for 25 minutes”)
4. Try “brief me” for today’s focus, streak, and next alarm
5. Tap the info icon for the full catalogue of what it understands

AuraWake

AuraWake is an alarm that asks something of you before the day starts.

1. Open Settings → Aura Wake, or say “wake me at 7 with a physical challenge”
2. Set the time and repeat by weekday
3. Choose a challenge: math (gentle, focused, intense), typing a phrase, combined, steps, location, or object scan
4. Pick a sound, vibration, and whether XP rewards apply
5. Dismiss the alarm by completing the challenge — no snooze without one

Personal Goals (OKRs)

Personal Goals connect today’s focus to a bigger direction: one active cycle of objectives with weighted key results.

1. Open Goals → Personal Goals
2. Start a cycle (1, 2, 4, or 6 weeks) or pick a template like Deep Work Week or Ship It
3. Add an objective — what you want — and 2–4 key results with a target, unit, and weight
4. Log a check-in each week: current value and High/Medium/Low confidence
5. Compare your progress bar with the cycle timer; they should roughly match

Urge Check

1. Tap “I have an urge” on the Home card
2. Name the app you were about to open and why
3. Take the 3-minute pause — a seated figure breathes with you and holds still whenever you stop
4. Pause and resume as often as you like; finishing logs it as resisted and pays +25 Focus XP
5. Hide the card in Settings → Home Screen → Urge Check if you prefer

Settings & your data

• Focus Defaults — default duration, mode, early-exit behavior, lock-screen message, and Do Not Disturb
• Lock Screen Style — pick a theme or build a custom Aura
• Appearance — System / Light / Dark, Reduce Motion, session end sound and vibrate
• Notifications — session end, journal reminders, weekly recap, and celebration, each toggled separately
• Data & Privacy — export everything as JSON or import a backup; export journal or stats as shareable text

Permissions

Accessibility is required; Usage access is required on most phones. The rest improve reliability. Every phone hides these screens somewhere different — the device permission guide gives the exact tap path for your brand, and Permissions explains what each one does and does not do.

If you uninstall

1. Turn off Accessibility: Settings → Accessibility → Installed apps / Downloaded apps → AuraLock → off
2. Open Settings → Apps and find AuraLock
3. Tap Uninstall and confirm