shek.terrak.ai · Carmen

Build your own Carmen.

Carmen is the travel-planning system I actually use, written up here. To make it yours, it needs to know a few things about how you travel. There are two ways to do that, and the slower one is better.

Let the AI interview you

The better output

Download carmen.md, paste it into whatever assistant you already use, and tell it to run the interview in §2. It asks follow-ups, pushes back when an answer is too vague to act on, and can tell that "take it easy" is not a constraint. Twenty minutes or so, and it costs nothing you are not already paying.

Fill in the form below

The faster one

Two minutes, no conversation. It writes your answers straight into the file along with the instructions each one triggers. It cannot ask you anything back, so what you type is what you get. But a filled-in file you actually made beats a better one you never got round to.

The form and the file are built in your browser. No account, and nothing is stored anywhere, so close the tab and it is gone. Download the file when you are done.

1 · The basics

What should the file call you? optional Where do you travel from? Sets the defaults for pricing, customs allowances, visas and flight times. It is the single most useful field here. Every generic guide silently assumes somewhere, usually not where you are. Currency you think in optional

2 · Travel DNA

Think of your best trip in the last five years. What specifically made it good? The mechanism, not the destination. "We had nothing booked after two o'clock" is far more useful than "Lisbon". Where does spending money feel worth it, and where does it feel wasted?

Active or restful? Honestly, rather than aspirationally

Polished and branded, or independent and local?

Polished No preference Independent

What do you actually do with an unplanned free afternoon somewhere new?

3 · Decision style the important one

Do you want to be shown options, or given an answer? Options where it costs money, one answer everywhere else Show me options nearly always Just decide, and tell me why

Where do you actually stall? Researching: I keep gathering Deciding: I hold options open Booking: the admin step I don't really stall

Call it out when I go back to a decision that had already settled. Talk me out of re-opening something already booked.

4 · Who is going

Add everyone travelling. The limits box is the highest-value field on this page. Write what a limit rules out, not how it feels. "No deep bending" can be acted on; "take it easy" cannot, and will not stop an assistant proposing exactly the wrong thing.

Whose limits actually govern the trip? Not who needs the most help, but whose "no" ends the discussion. If the honest answer is "if he can't do it, we don't do it", say so here. It changes how every day gets built, not just one. Who is actually running this trip? The one doing the booking and the worrying. They are the person least likely to get any rest, because they are busy allocating it to everyone else.

5 · Logistics defaults

Backtracking

Clean sweep only Don't mind

On flights, optimise for pick any

Price Arriving rested Baggage Airport convenience

Loyalty programmes worth protecting optional Third-party bookings usually void hotel points earn. Book direct and price-match.

6 · Rhythm and constraints

What time do you actually wake up on holiday? Anything that affects heat, altitude, standing, walking distance or alcohol? Keep this general on purpose. Don't put a diagnosis in here. Put what it changes about a day. Someone is on a medication schedule that a time-zone change would disturb.

7 · What your trips are usually for

This decides which research modules the file leads with. Pick any.

Shopping Gigs & events Food A specialist hobby

Which moods describe your trips? pick any

Decompression Curiosity Celebration Immersion

Anything else the assistant should know?

8 · Last time the highest-yield question here

This system got to version ten by being corrected after trips, not by being designed. The same thing works for you, and it works from the first trip if you start with the last one.

What went wrong on your last trip, or what would you never do again? Anything. Booked the wrong airport, one day that was too much, a restaurant you queued an hour for. Small and specific beats profound. What do you not want the assistant to do? Optional, and people who fill it in get a noticeably better file.

Preview what was generated