Maddy · Caregiver home · the recommendation, built
Between You
The research-best fit (88/100): the home is the relationship, tended by Pip, where blessing what she did and sending her love are one warm channel. Built as compelling minimalism: interface-minimal, emotionally maximal. The caregiver is the first and final believer, so every touch has to land, while the app still does its real job: carry the load and need you less over time.
Below is the FULL set of states (including the ones the earlier options skipped), then the build plan. Green chips mark a research-mandated add; amber chips mark a guardrail against a known trap.
Recognize = warmth, not a verdictCaught up sends you away + offers a gestureThe After feedback is its own cardGraduation fade built inNo count, queue, watching-eyeMoney under the no-zero ruleSelf-Care, a door not a promptWarmth flows back to you (Group F)
Group A · the daily channel
One warm channel, one gesture
The everyday surface. Pip narrates her side; recognizing and encouraging flow through one warm channel (the actions stay distinct: Recognize is its own tap). Caught-up is the common open, and it sends you away rather than inviting you to hover.
MaddyManage
🐢
All quiet with Maddy.
I'll find you if anything changes. 🤍
Reaching your Circle, coming soon
Self-Care
A1 · caught up (the common open)
It sends you away, warmly
Most opens look like this. The send-away line breaks the checking loop; the one offer is to reach her first, never a prompt or a chore.
send-away promiseencouragement offerno count / no watching-eye
MaddyManage
Maddy did a few things.
🛏️🌸
🚿🌸
🪥🌸
Tap any one to look closer
Running low? Quiet things down
Self-Care
A2 · something to recognize
Her wins, not a queue
She walks in holding what she did. One Recognize blesses them all as a wave of warmth; tap any to step in. No count, never scrolls, never accretes. The quiet "Running low?" is the load off-ramp.
batch Recognizeload off-ramp entrycapped cluster, no count
MaddyClose
🚿🌸
🖼️
Took a shower $2
Ask for a change
A3 · looking closer at one moment
Step right up to one thing
Her proof, the real reward, and a warm Recognize this. "Ask for a change" sits quietly beneath, never a balanced approve/deny, never red, and it never withholds her win.
real money shownredo is quiet, not a verdict
MaddyClose
🐢
Send Maddy a little something
So proud of how you showed up today 💛
💛 ✨ 🌸 🫶 ☀️
It lands on her home as a glow from Pip.
A4 · the one composer (the wow)
One channel for warmth
Recognizing is a complete standalone tap (A2 and A3 send the reward, no words needed); the composer is an optional add-on it never requires. The same warm channel then carries a reply to a win or an out-of-the-blue note. No read receipts, no sent log in either direction.
no receipts / no sent-log
Group B · the two-way warmth
What she felt, and what you mean to her
The pieces that make the caregiver believe: her own felt experience flows back as something kind and actionable, and the app quietly reflects that she is in Maddy's corner, without ever rating her.
MaddyManage
Maddy shared how something felt.
💬 In her words
The shower felt like a lot today.
too muchsensory
🎧 She left a voice note · 0:08
Suggested: make it optional on tough days
Or just send her a note
Self-Care
B1 · what Maddy told you (The After)
Her experience, made actionable and kind
Its own card, never folded into encouragement. The app does the noticing and pre-builds the fix (one tap). Inner-ring only. Resolved: softening never touches earned or future money, only cadence/optionality, fully reversible; lean toward auto-applying "optional on tough days" with undo (carry, don't present).
The After loop, one-tap fixown card, inner-ring only
🤍
Maddy just passed $100 she earned herself.
You made the room for that. Quietly, every day.
Close
B2 · in her corner (JER-569)
A surprise that reflects, never rates
An occasional warm moment tied to her autonomy, crediting your foundation. The figure is descriptive, never a tier, and it never previews a next threshold. No running day-count or streak (a caregiver-attendance number reads as "don't break the chain"); the reflective shape is "You've been here for Maddy, day after day", with nothing that increments or can lapse.
non-contingent recognitionmonotonic, never a target
Group C · you, and your load
A door for you, and a way to set it all down
The product is the burnout intervention because it carries load. Self-Care is always available without nagging, and on a hard day you can quiet everything without ever rating your state, and without stranding Maddy.
Back
For you, Jeremy.
Supporting is heavy work. This part is yours.
🌬️Breathe
🌿Ground
🎧Sounds
Good to know
Reward that a need got met, not how "normal" it looked. That keeps tasks honest to who she is.
Good to know
You needing the app less, over time, is the win. Not a sign you are doing it wrong.
C1 · Self-Care, opened (your corner)
A sanctuary, plus tiny in-context learning
The regulation toolkit (Sounds runs while you work), with a small finite set of "try this" cards carrying the masking guardrail and the fade. No badge, no "did you self-care?", ever.
Care as education (decision 7)door, never a prompt
🐢
Let's quiet things down.
I'll carry today. Nothing here will pull at you.
Maddy won't be left waiting. She'll see a warm note: "Seen. I'll get to these when there's room."
C2 · Running low, quiet things down
Set it down without self-reporting
The overwhelm off-ramp, with zero "how are you feeling?". Defaults carry, and crucially it never strands Maddy in the pending-void: she gets a gentle holding note, then it opens into a breath.
load-shed hatchno self-report; subject not stranded
Group D · the fade (the part every option skipped)
Designed to need you less, and to make that feel like the win
The organizing principle of the whole experience: scaffolding that never fades is a leash. The same channel thins over months with no rebuild, and the only nudge to step back is soft and admin-only.
MaddyManage
🐢Maddy's mostly got this now.
FOR YOU
More and more, this part is just yours.
She's doing more on her own, because of the foundation you built.
🌬️Breathe
🌿Ground
🎧Sounds
💗
D1 · months later, the channel thins
Doing less, shown not stated
Her side quiets to a presence strip; your side grows into the screen. Same layout, no rebuild, driven by a display layer that reads her regulation arc. No downward trend, no metric, framed as her growth and your success.
graduation fade layersuccess, never emptiness/grief
MaddyManage
🐢
Maddy's been steady for a while.
A gentle idea, just for you
Want to offer her a little more room?
You could let some tasks run without a check from you. She can take it or leave it.
She decides. Nothing changes unless she says yes.
D2 · the soft step-down (admin only)
Suggest, never decide
The only nudge to fade faster. Admin-caregiver only, framed as a private idea, and Maddy accepts or declines (supported decision-making). Never guilt, never a forced change.
admin-only soft step-downasymmetric authority
Group E · everything else, on demand
The one door, and the money done right
Admin lives behind a single Manage door that opens a calm tile sheet, never a tab bar or a settings list. Money is real and co-visible, under the no-zero rule, with recognition reversible as a soft void.
MaddyManage
🐢
All quiet with Maddy.
Everything elseDone
Things
Rewards
Circle
Settings
E1 · the one door, opened
Findable, but not a list
A real, tappable Manage pill (not 13px grey text) opens a calm 2x2 of Things, Rewards, Circle, Settings. Not a tab bar, not a settings list, never the headline.
one door, tile sheet
BackMaddy
Rewards
Maddy has earned $14 this week.
🚿A morning thing$2Undo
🛏️Another small one$2Undo
🌙YesterdayA rest day–
Undo just voids it gently. Nothing is taken from her.
E2 · Rewards, the money done right
Real, co-visible, no-zero
Real money both can see. A quiet day reads "–", never "$0", with no completion-rate or gap; the aggregate is no-zero too (a $0 week reads "Nothing to settle up", no Pay-$0). Line items name the moment loosely, never log when she showered, so a glance from Maddy reads as a tally, not surveillance. Undo is a soft void, never a punishment.
subject-glance: tally, not a logno-zero aggregate too
payout-undo soft voidno-zero / no gap framing
Group F · what comes back to you
The warmth that flows the other way
Reassurance, engagement, peace, and levity for the caregiver, the only way the research allows: she-initiated and pushed to you, never watched or pulled. These mostly ride Circle pipes already shipped in build 67. They make the channel feel two-way, which is what keeps the first and final believer believing.
MaddyManage
🐢
Maddy left you something.
Thanks for not giving up on me. Today was a better one. 💛
From Maddy
Say something back
Self-Care
F1 · Maddy thanked you (engagement)
Her gratitude, in her own words
The single most evidence-backed lever for sustaining a caregiver (felt social worth). She chose to send it. It arrives as a quiet hero moment, never a stat.
gratitude back (the #1 lever)
MaddyManage
She sent a little something back.
So proud of how you showed up today 💛
💛
Maddy
Self-Care
F2 · the channel, both ways (engagement)
She felt it, and let you know
Your note, and her heart back. This is her choosing to react, a warm reciprocity, never a read-receipt and never a "seen at 9:14". The relationship is mutual, not one-directional.
reciprocitya reaction, never a receipt
MaddyManage
Maddy's circle was in her corner today.
👵
🧑
🧓
Nana and two others sent her warmth.
You are not carrying this alone. 🤍
Self-Care
F3 · the circle showed up (peace)
You are not the only one
Informal support is the strongest buffer against caregiver burnout. Forward-only presence ("in her corner lately"), non-numeric, never "who didn't show". It shows the Circle's warmth toward her, never her activity log.
not-alone / burnout bufferpresence, not a log
MaddyManage
Maddy sent you a laugh.
🐱
"the cat sat on my entire to-do list. so that is cancelled 🙃"
😂
Self-Care
F4 · a little levity (the real gap)
The relationship gets to be fun
The build was tender but never funny. Her personality reaching you, a goofy photo, a silly note, a shared laugh, is what keeps a believer believing. Levity is content, so it stays inside the sensory envelope.
levity lane (new)
MaddyManage
🐢
Maddy wanted you to know today felt heavy.
She reached out. That took something.
A little warmth, never "are you okay?"
Self-Care
F5 · she chose to tell you (reassurance)
The only safe form of "is she okay"
Not you watching, her reaching out. Consent-gated, she picks the audience, and it guides you to warmth, never an "are you okay?" interrogation. Gentle, no red, no alarm. Silence still means okay.
consent-gated reassuranceguided to warmth, not interrogation
Group F+ · the build detail
The levity lane, the empty default, and the one above the rest
The frames the spec asks for: most opens are silent, levity is a real send flow (her side) carried by Pip (your side), and the one warm thing that can sit above a pending Recognize is a hard-day reach-out.
MaddyManage
🐢
All quiet with Maddy.
I'll find you if anything changes. 🤍
Self-Care
the default · most opens
Silence is the baseline
Group F is the exception, not the feed. Most opens show exactly this and send you away. Absence is never rendered as a deficit, no "nothing today" sad-state, no empty inbox.
absence carries no information
Laughs
Send Jeremy a laugh
Pip will carry it over.
📷
Photo
snap something goofy
✨
Sticker
a Pip mood
✍️
One-liner
a quick quip
🐢
A joke
send Pip with one
Whenever. No pressure, nothing owed.
levity · Maddy's side (NEW build)
How she sends a laugh
A roomy, calm flow from her Laughs screen (large tap targets). Four modalities: a photo (private bucket, EXIF stripped on device, short-lived signed reads), a curated sticker, a capped one-liner, or a Pip-carried joke from the audited pool. Send-cap 2/day, 5/week, excess silently coalesced so her tap never gets a "no".
new: levity_sends + private media
MaddyManage
🐢
Maddy sent Pip over with a joke.
Why did Maddy's to-do list go to therapy?
Tap for the rest 👀
Pip is the bridge between you two.
Self-Care
levity · your side (Pip carries it)
The companion is the punchline-bearer
A Pip-carried joke lands as a setup in Pip's voice; tap to reveal the rest, with an optional laugh-back. Pip being the literal go-between is what keeps even the silly stuff inside the warm relationship, never a system notification.
Pip as bridgecontent surprise, never sensory
MaddyManage
🐢
Maddy reached out today. Today felt heavy.
Her wins are here when you're ready.
Self-Care
priority · the reach-out owns the screen
The highest-stakes open stays calm
Resolved: on a hard-day reach-out, the reach-out owns the whole screen and tasks wait for the next open (a single quiet line notes the wins are there, no cluster, no competing CTA). Recognizing while she is struggling would read transactional; the calm is the point.
decision: reach-out owns the screen
The plan
Ship Between You in the same phasing the Subject side used (FLOW) and the caregiver north-star already calls for (CAREGIVER.md). About 70% of the visual rework runs on data pipes that already exist; the genuinely new build is the channel shell and one display layer for the fade. The inbound warmth (Group F) mostly rides Circle pipes already shipped in build 67, so it is wiring, not new infrastructure, except a small levity lane. Each phase is independently shippable and leaves the home coherent.
The companion voice cannot ship correctly without it
Small, blocking. Do first.
Phase 1 · structural
The channel, on existing pipes
Caught-up + send-away (A1)
Recognize cluster + one batch Recognize (A2, A3)
The shared warm composer (A4) → encouragement_notes
Self-Care door (C1) + Manage 2x2 sheet (E1)
Rewards + payout, no-zero (E2)
Low risk. Mostly a reskin + re-IA of shipped data.
Phase 2 · two-way + load
Warmth that carries
"What Maddy told you" card + one-tap fix (B1) → task_feedback
Running-low hatch: hold + warm note to Maddy (C2)
Care education micro-cards, masking guardrail (C1)
Payout-undo as soft void (E2)
Medium. The After is shipped; wire its surface + the hold logic.
Phase 3 · the fade
Need you less, visibly
Graduation display layer: state forward, level recedes (D1)
Admin-only soft step-down suggestion (D2)
"In her corner" markers surfaced (B2) → caregiverMilestones
Build the display layer in P1 so P3 is a dimmer, not a rebuild.
Data pipes: have vs new
encouragement_notes (composer, A4)
EXISTS
task_feedback + RLS (The After, B1)
EXISTS
earnings / payouts (E2)
EXISTS
caregiverMilestones.js (B2)
EXISTS
maddy_messages, gratitude back (F1)
EXISTS
milestone_shares reactions + Circle (F2, F3)
SHIPPED
state-share + hard-day heads-up (F5)
SHIPPED
daily_state, task completions
EXISTS
The channel UI shell + composer reuse
NEW
Fade display layer (regulation arc → layout)
NEW
Running-low hold + holding note to subject
NEW
Circle reach-out (encouragement to outer ring)
LATER
Guardrails (the gotchas, as build rules)
The Recognize tap stays distinct from the note. Recognition is non-contingent, never performance-gated.
The After card is never folded into the composer, and inner-ring only (the Circle never sees how a task felt).
The chip cluster is capped, countless, never scrollable. It must not become a feed of her activity.
No watching-eye: no count, last-active, online dot, "check now", or refreshable live state.
No sent-log, no read-receipts on anything sent, in either direction.
"In her corner" is strictly monotonic, never earnable, never shows a gap or last-seen.
Money is no-zero ("–" not "$0"), no completion-rate, no score, no compliance streak. Undo = soft void.
Self-Care is a door, never a prompt: no badge, no count, no "did you self-care?".
Reduce Motion respected; gentle only, no looping or startling animation (surprise in content, never in sensory delivery).
Step-down is admin-only and soft; Maddy accepts or declines. Caregivers never move her level directly.
Inbound warmth (Group F) is she-initiated and forward-only: gratitude, a reaction, the Circle's presence, a laugh. Never a read-receipt, never a feed, never "who didn't show up". The Circle reads as warmth toward her, never her activity log. The only "is she okay" signal is one she chose to send, guided to warmth not interrogation.
Push payloads never leak her. Every Group F and subject-state push uses content-free copy on the lock screen ("Something warm from Maddy"); her words, state, and task names are revealed only after unlock, in-app. The caregiver is never made an unwitting broadcaster.
Named accessibility is enforced, not assumed. A global Reduce Motion fallback freezes every breathe/float/reveal; meaning never rides color alone (the her/you zones each carry a label, not just a tint); the chip cluster and dense cards reflow at large Dynamic Type; VoiceOver gets explicit labels and the punchline stays out of the a11y tree until revealed.
The levity cap is invisible to Maddy. Server-side and caregiver-facing-coalescing only: she never sees a count, quota, cooldown, or disabled tile. Her Laughs screen looks identical at send 1 and send 6.
Photo privacy is server-enforced. EXIF/location stripped on upload into a verified-private bucket (on-device strip is the fast path); on failure the photo is dropped and a sticker or joke lands instead, so her tap never gets a "no" and nothing leaks. The F5 reach-out ack is caregiver-private at the RLS layer, never readable by Maddy.
Group F adds zero caregiver-facing toggles. The Manage door never grows Group-F config sub-screens; every Group F preference lives on Maddy's side, or the fatter door pulls against "caught-up sends you away".
The decision test (every change must pass): does it reduce the caregiver's load and read as support, not surveillance, and does it still hold when Maddy has graduated and the caregiver should be doing less? Measurable gloss: month over month, caregiver effort should go down while Maddy's self-determined task completion holds or rises. If effort is not dropping, the home is presenting work, not carrying it.
Group F, the spec
How the warmth that flows back actually gets built, without ever becoming a feed, a count, or a watching-eye. Every signal is she-initiated, pushed, forward-only, and resolved through one shared arbiter so the calm home never stacks two warm things. Each signal below was drafted and then adversarially verified against the surveillance, sensory, RSD, RLS, and no-receipt lines.
The warm-slot arbiter (the one rule that holds it together)
1F5 hard-day reach-out · she raised a hand. May even sit above a pending Recognize.
2F1 gratitude · her own words to you (highest-evidence lever)
3F2 reaction · she reacted to your note
4In her corner · the shipped milestone marker
5F3 circle presence · you are not alone
6F4 levity · a laugh, shown only on a truly-empty open (decoupled fallback, never starved)
One named module (warmInbound.js) runs once on each home focus, queries every warm pipe, and returns exactly one item by this priority. Ties within a tier break by most-recent-unseen.
Everything else is held silently, never queued into a visible list, never "+2 more", never badged, never counted. Held items stay in their own durable home (the Circle thread, the levity window, today's state row) and may surface on a later caught-up open if still fresh. Daily reset is the backstop: nothing carries forward as backlog.
Resolved (the review caught it): the shipped "in her corner" milestone card is folded into this one arbiter at rank 4, so a caught-up open shows the milestone or a Group F moment, never both. When it surfaces it carries no running count or next-threshold (it stays a reflection, not a streak).
Group F never competes with a pending Recognize. The queue is the job; Group F is what the empty queue gets to feel like. The only exception is F5, which owns the whole screen.
Resolved (the checking-loop fork): warmth is push-primary, consumed in place, so the caregiver never needs to open-to-check. The caught-up home never advertises waiting warmth (no badge, count, or cue), so a cold open is not reinforced by the possibility of a reward. A waiting item still surfaces at most once on a cold open, but rising open-frequency is tracked as the guardrail: if opens climb, dial back toward push-only.
The five signals
F1 · Gratitude back
Maddy thanks you in her own words, a quiet hero moment.
Trigger
She writes and sends a thank-you. Never auto-generated, never asked-for after you recognize her (that would make it a transaction).
In-app once per window; push at most once per ~7 days, as occasional good news.
Guardrail
Forward-only, non-numeric, names presence not message bodies, never "who didn't show". Single member, use the singular ("Sarah reached out to Maddy"), never a false "and others".
RLS
New consent gate (share_circle_presence_with_caregiver) + app-level pause check; must never reveal a supporters-only hard-day by inference.
Edge
Paused outer ring, silent for the whole pause.
F4 · Levity
She sends you a laugh. The one genuinely new build.
Trigger
She sends from "Send a laugh", or the optional add-on after she shares a win.
Pipe
new levity_sends table + private media bucket NEW
Cap
2/day, 5/week land for you; excess silently coalesced; one per open via the arbiter.
Guardrail
Content surprise, never sensory: no autoplay, still photo only in v1, gentle. Private bucket, EXIF stripped on device, short-TTL signed reads.
RLS
Inner-ring, subject to caregiver only (mirrors task_feedback insert-own).
Edge
Graduation, the task-adjacent prompts fade first; the relationship sends fade last.
F5 · She chose to tell you
Her consent-gated hard-day reach-out, the only safe "is she okay".
Trigger
She taps "let them know". The state alone (tired, low) never triggers it.
Pipe
daily_state.reached_out_at + a reached_out_seen_at ack PARTIAL: push + ack new
Cap
Once per day (one state row, idempotent re-tap); push once per reach-out.
Guardrail
Guides to warmth ("be in her corner"), never an "are you okay?" interrogation. Soft tint + heart, never red, never a banner or modal.
RLS
Inner-ring only. The only signal allowed to sit above the Recognize CTA.
Edge
Multiple caregivers, each sees it on their own home with per-caregiver seen state.
The frequency governor
Two layers, so warmth stays special and never a notification stream.
In-app
One warm thing per open (the arbiter), plus per-signal daily ceilings.
Push
One shared server-side coalescing window per caregiver (recommend 4 to 6h, newest replaces queued). F2 never pushes. All on the non-urgent channel, quiet copy, no red badge.
Rest day
Group F is relationship, not scaffolding, so a thank-you, laugh, or reach-out can still arrive, carrying no task framing.
Graduation
Task-adjacent affordances fade first; F1, F4, F5 are the last warmth to fade and never auto-graduate away.
The levity lane, in full
Four modalities, all content-surprise and zero sensory-surprise:
📷
Goofy photo. Camera or library. Stored in a new private levity-media bucket, EXIF and location stripped on-device before upload, thumbnailed for the card, taps to a calm full view. No video in v1.
✨
Sticker. A small curated, theme-aware, on-brand set (Pip moods + warm glyphs), no upload (no abuse surface), no aggressive looping.
✍️
One-liner. A short free-text quip (hard ~140 char cap so it stays a quip, not a message; the message channel is caregiver_notes). Her words, untouched.
🐢
Pip-carried joke. She picks from the existing audited Laughs pool and taps "send Pip with this". On your side Pip carries it: setup in Pip's voice, tap to reveal the punchline. Pip is the literal bridge.
Send path: one roomy, calm flow from her Laughs screen and an optional add-on after she shares a win, with a quiet "On its way" confirmation. Caps: 2/day, 5/week land for the caregiver, enforced server-side, excess silently coalesced so her tap never gets a "no". Privacy: private bucket, on-device EXIF strip + re-encode, short-TTL signed reads regenerated per view, never a public URL. Defaults: available, never a prompt or a "send Jeremy a laugh today" nag.
Net-new vs shipped
Rides shipped pipes (build 67): F1 (maddy_messages), F2 (caregiver_notes reactions), F3 reads (encouragement_notes + milestone_shares), F5 strip + state (daily_state.reached_out_at), the milestone card (caregiverMilestones.js).
Pipe-label corrections (verified against prod):caregiver_notes.reactions already ships (only from_user_id is a new migration, and old notes carry no author key so F2 routing starts from new notes forward); maddy_messages.kind needs a backfill so historical messages do not replay as unseen warm items on the first post-migration open.
Small migrations: caregiver_notes.from_user_id; maddy_messages.kind (+ backfill); F3 consent column + RLS that honors pause.
Genuinely new: the warmInbound.js arbiter (one batched, debounced read per home focus, silent on read-failure, never from stale cache); a single per-(caregiver, signal) seen/ack ledger (one table that resolves dedupe, the multi-caregiver per-caregiver-seen, and keeps the F5 ack subject-unreadable); the levity lane (table, verified-private bucket, server + on-device EXIF, send-cap trigger); the durable warm-push coalescing store + scheduled flush; the F3-crossing evaluator + F5/F3 push fan-out (device-tokens table if caregivers run multiple devices).
Decisions, resolved
Opening is never made rewarding. Warmth is push-primary and consumed in place; the caught-up home never advertises waiting warmth; open-frequency is the guardrail metric. (The checking-loop fork, settled toward the research.)
The hard-day reach-out owns the whole screen. Tasks wait for the next open; one calm screen on the highest-stakes moment, and the one-warm-thing rule holds with no exception to state everywhere.
Levity is a decoupled fallback, shown only on a truly-empty open, so higher warm items never starve the marquee build.
Softening never touches money, only future cadence/optionality, reversible; auto-applied with undo where possible rather than presented as a decision.
Seen-state + multi-caregiver committed: one per-(caregiver, signal) ack ledger, RLS-scoped so no caregiver reads another's ack; each inner-ring caregiver gets their own moment, no cross-caregiver receipt.
Arbiter order confirmed: F5 > F1 > F2 > milestone > F3 > F4, ties by most-recent-unseen.
Push window: 6h shared coalescing (F2 never pushes). F3 consent: default OFF, toggle on Maddy's side only. Levity one-liner deferred to a fast-follow (ship photo + sticker + Pip-joke first, to protect "absence carries no information").
Graduation voice softens, never drops: Pip's hand-off shortens as the card thins ("A note from Maddy"); the relationship channels fade last.
Revisit triggers: if caregiver open-frequency rises, move to push-only; if real AuDHD-young-adult caregivers read any marker as a target, strip it to pure milestone moments.
Addendum · making Manage findable
Easier to find, easier to move within, still calm
Two problems, separated. Navigating the admin (hopping Things / Rewards / Circle / Settings) is fixed the same way in all three. Finding the door is where the three options differ. None adds a tab bar, a dashboard, or clutter to the calm home.
MaddyManage
🐢
All quiet with Maddy.
Manage Maddy's circleDone
💰 Maddy has earned $14
🎁 Reward style Money ›
📅 Weekly budget $25 ›
the shared fix · navigate
The hub is navigable from within
Whatever opens it, the sheet gains a quiet segmented control. Once you're in, hop Things → Rewards → Circle → Settings without backing out. The 2x2 was findable but not navigable; this fixes that for all three options.
segmented hub, no back-and-forth
Maddy Manage
🐢
All quiet with Maddy.
I'll find you if anything changes. 🤍
Self-Care
option 1 · the clearer pill (lowest change)
Same spot, unmistakably a control
Keep the top-right pill but give it a gear glyph + label and a touch more contrast, so it reads as a real control, not a word. Smallest change, zero new surface. Findability gain is modest, but paired with the navigable hub it's a clean, safe win.
no new surface
🌸 Maddy's circle ▾
🐢
All quiet with Maddy.
I'll find you if anything changes. 🤍
Self-Care
option 2 · the circle pill is the door
Tap your circle to manage it
Collapse the two top pills into one. The identity pill (already there, already saying which circle you're in) becomes the door, leveraging the universal "tap your avatar to manage your account" instinct. One fewer element, more discoverable, and it also carries circle-switching. My lean.
one door, fewer elementsleverages a convention
MaddySelf-Care
🐢
All quiet with Maddy.
I'll find you if anything changes. 🤍
Manage
option 3 · the pull-up handle (boldest)
Thumb-zone, a familiar pull
A calm bottom-center handle + grabber on every home state, reading as a standard iOS pull-up sheet (with a faint peek). Most discoverable: it lives in the thumb zone and uses a convention everyone knows. Honest trade: it's a persistent bottom affordance, the closest of the three to the one-item-dock caution, so weigh it.
most discoverableclosest to a dock, weigh it
My read
Ship the navigable hub regardless (the segmented control). It is pure upside and fixes the real "hard to move within" half.
For the entry, lean Option 2 (the circle pill is the door): fewer elements, more discoverable via a universal convention, and it folds in circle-switching. Keep the simplicity exactly.
Option 3 is the fallback if real testing shows people still miss it, accepting the persistent-bottom-affordance trade. Option 1 is the do-no-harm minimum.
Future-state · design thinking
Built to grow into the Circle, not bolt tabs onto it
The future adds Circle communication, Learning, and maybe a Community portal. The trap is a tab-bar dashboard. The way through is one rule: direction is the axis. Receiving warmth is felt on the home (arbitrated, vanishing); sending and browsing is deliberate work behind one quiet door. The home never grows a third card.
MaddyManage
MADDY
🐢
Maddy is good
YOU
A minute for you, Jeremy?
🧘Relax
🎧Sounds
🌿Ground
💗 Sarah's got tonight. You rest.
💗
future · the two-arbiter home
A second relationship, no new card
The caregiver lives two relationships. Warmth from your people (a co-caregiver's "I've got tonight") lands in the YOU zone via its own one-warm-thing arbiter, forward-only, no feed. Self-Care is the floor that never yields; the warmth line is what yields.
The 2x2 matures into sections by relationship distance (This circle → For you → Together). The launcher shows labels only, never counts, previews, or badges; every place is two taps away; exiting returns to the calm home, never here. The mute glyph looks identical with two things behind it or ten.
extensible launcherlabels only, never a dashboard
This circle
Share the load
Two ways, both fire-and-forget.
🤝
Pass the baton
"I've got tonight, you rest." A note to your co-caregivers. No thread, no reply owed.
🙋
Ask the circle
"Could someone bring dinner Thursday?" Pip finds someone and tells you only when it's claimed.
Jordan's bringing dinner Thursday. 🤍
claimed just now
future · Circle comms (behind the door)
Coordinate the helpers, never monitor her
Exactly two primitives. Sending is deliberate; the app chases the ask and reports only when claimed, so the caregiver does zero follow-up. A silent ask costs nothing, with no count of who didn't help. It coordinates the helpers' availability, never a shared status board about Maddy.
pass-the-baton + bounded asknever a subject monitor
Together
🤍
You've walked this. Some families are just starting.
You have room now, if you want it.
Maybe later is a complete answer.
future · the graduation destination
The fade completes, it doesn't just end
The caregiver's bond to the platform outlasts their bond to the task. As caregiving thins, the willing graduate can become a supporter or mentor to the next family. Offered once, on a calm day, one tap deep, declinable, never a home CTA, never a re-engagement streak. The circle completes.
caregiver → mentor arcsuggest, never push
Future-state architecture
Three IA models were designed and pressure-tested. The recommendation: "Sacred Home + one growing hub" as the skeleton, with "Two living relationships" as the warmth rule, and the "place switcher" model rejected (it is one decision from a tab bar and makes the future surfaces peers of the home rather than subordinate to it). The home stays the gravity well you always fall back into.
The one principle: direction is the axis
Receiving warmth is felt on the home, through a one-warm-thing arbiter, forward-only, vanishing. Sending and browsing is deliberate work behind the one Manage door. This single rule pre-answers where every future capability goes and prevents ad-hoc placement that drifts toward a dashboard.
So the home grows a second arbiter, not a third card: the MADDY card arbitrates warmth from the subject's world (Group F); the YOU zone arbitrates warmth from the caregiver's own people (co-caregivers, supporters). Self-Care is the floor that never yields; the warmth line is what yields. Pip stays bound to the MADDY relationship and never narrates the YOU zone or anything behind the door.
The three future surfaces
Circle communication
Distribute the load and deliver "I'm not carrying this alone" (the strongest burnout buffer).
Receive
Inbound peer warmth lands on the home's YOU zone (arbitrated, already-completed, never a pending demand).
Send
Behind the door, two primitives only: pass-the-baton (a forward-only hand-off note) and the bounded ask (the app routes to supporters, chases, and reports only when claimed).
Guardrail
Coordinates the helpers, never a shared monitor of the subject. No read-receipts, online dots, "who didn't respond". Subject-state lives only in the MADDY relationship.
Learning
Microlearning and worked examples, not a curriculum.
Primary
In-context "good to know" cards at the moment of relevance (task-create, after a hand-off, beside rough feedback). One idea, one thing to try, dismissible, zero penalty.
Secondary
An optional 3-5 card shelf in "For you". Unordered: no "start here", no modules 1..N, no completion bar, no streak (a banned loss-aversion mechanic), no badge, no push.
Guardrail
Belongs in For-you (self-directed nourishment), never imposed by the circle. Never coaches making the subject appear more neurotypical (masking guardrail applies to content too).
Community (cautiously yes, last)
"You are not alone" + shared wisdom. Ship last, smallest, opt-in, or not at all.
Shape
Lives in "Together", only if joined, never on the home, never notifying. Anonymized "others have found" wisdom cards + optional one-way solidarity.
Blocks
No feed, no infinite scroll, no threads/reply-counts, no followers, no likes-as-scores, no leaderboards, no "families like yours" benchmarking, no real-time chat, no unread badge.
Posture
Shaped toward forward-looking "what helped", never open-ended venting (blocks co-rumination). If it cannot ship without a feed or a reply obligation, ship it not at all; Circle comms + Learning already deliver most of the de-isolation benefit.
The graduation arc: NOW → BRIDGE → DESTINATION
The three surfaces are one progression along the fade, not three tabs. Circle comms is the NOW (distribute load while caregiving is intensive). Learning is the BRIDGE (just-in-time understanding that turns the caregiver from receiver into knower). Community is the DESTINATION (a graduated caregiver's wisdom becomes mentorship to the next family).
The deep insight: the caregiver's relationship to the platform outlasts their relationship to the task. As the subject graduates, the home does exactly what Between You already promises (MADDY quiets to a presence strip, YOU grows), and the hub's center of gravity re-weights from "run the circle" to "tend myself and connect with others". The YOU-zone warmth persists because your relationship to your people does not fade just because the subject needs less scaffolding. The leash loosens on the subject relationship while the people/learning/community relationship endures, obligation-free. That is graduation completing, not a leash.
What to do now (so it is future-ready, not a rebuild)
Design today's 2x2 Manage sheet as an extensible, relationship-distance launcher (This circle / For you / Together), and write the rule into code now: labels only, never contents, counts, previews, or badges. This is the firewall.
Lock the Manage glyph permanently mute: no badge, no count, no dot, identical no matter how much lives behind it.
Build the YOU/Care card as an extensible zone now: a Self-Care floor (Pip-free) + a yieldable warm line below, so co-caregiver warmth lands later without a home redesign.
Generalize the Group F arbiter into a reusable one-warm-thing primitive, instantiated twice (MADDY for subject-world, YOU for peer warmth), with deliberate overflow behavior (a gentle silent rollup, never a count).
Keep Pip structurally bound to the MADDY relationship (a guard, not a convention), so future surfaces never inherit companion narration.
Returning from any place returns to the home, never the launcher, from day one.
Land in-context Learning as the primary mechanism now (the mute door sacrifices discoverability; in-context must carry it).
Adopt "direction is the axis" as canon (CAREGIVER.md / a future-IA ADR).
The hardest future traps + decisions for you
The launcher is the slipperiest slope in the system: one product decision from a dashboard. The instant a section shows a count, badge, or "3 new" preview, the home's calm has been laundered into the hub. Labels only, forever.
Circle comms surveillance creep: co-caregivers will reasonably want "did Maddy do X today". The pull toward a shared status board about the subject is strong and well-intentioned. Hold absolutely: comms is the caregivers' division of labor and warmth, never a subject monitor.
Decision: does Community ever ship, or defer indefinitely until Circle comms + Learning are live and the structural blocks are proven? (It is the surface most in tension with the calm thesis, and the most defensible to cut.)
Decision: co-caregiver warmth lands in the YOU-zone arbiter (recommended) or routes through the MADDY Group F arbiter? (Determines whether the calmest surface grows a second arbiter.)
Decision: the bounded ask auto-routes to all supporters (lowest caregiver decision-count, canon-preferred) or the caregiver picks recipients? Control vs load.
Decision: does the browsable Learning shelf ship at all, or is in-context the only delivery (safest, most canon-pure)? And confirm the section names "This circle / For you / Together".
Option 3 · the interface behind the pull-up handle
A native sheet with two detents: choose, then do
Endorsed, with guardrails. The handle is the most reachable door for a one-handed, depleted parent, and a grabber tells the truth (an avatar pretending to be settings does not). What saves it from the one-item-dock trap: a disciplined peek (bare grabber at rest, no sheet edge) and a label that teaches once then recedes like the iOS home indicator.
MaddySelf-Care
🐢
All quiet with Maddy.
I'll find you if anything changes. 🤍
Manage
at rest · the disciplined handle
Almost furniture, like the home indicator
On the caught-up home: a bare grabber, the "Manage" label faded near to nothing (it teaches in the first sessions, then recedes), no peeking sheet edge, no badge, ever. A resting gaze sees almost nothing; a deliberate downward glance still finds the door. Self-Care moved to the top-right so the bottom is the handle's alone.
no peek, no state, teach-once
MaddySelf-Care
🐢
All quiet with Maddy.
ManageDone
ThingsTasks & budget
RewardsEarnings & payout
CirclePeople & roles
SettingsTheme & account
medium detent · the launcher
Tap or pull → choose where to go
A tap (primary, so it never fights the home-swipe gesture) or a pull opens the sheet to its medium detent, sized to show every door at once with breathing room, nothing scrolls. Labels + a one-line subtitle, no counts or previews. This is "choose where to go".
two detents: choose / do
MaddySelf-Care
CircleDone
🌸 Maddy subject
🧔 Jeremy (you) caregiver
👵 Nana supporter
🧑 Sam peer
large detent · the working place
Pick a door → room to do the work
Tapping a tile pushes the place in and the sheet rises to large in one motion. Sub-sections use a segmented control (Members / Invites), never bottom tabs. Back returns to the launcher; Done returns to the calm home, never the launcher, so you can't get stranded.
dismiss returns home, never the launcher
Option 3: pros, cons, guardrails
Verdict: endorse, with a written one-door ADR. The bottom handle is the only door that is both maximally reachable for a one-handed depleted parent AND self-evidently honest about what it does. It ships only in its tamed form; the naive "labeled, peeking, permanent" version walks straight into the audit's one-item-dock trap and is rejected.
Pros
Most reachable. Bottom-center is the single easiest spot for a one-handed parent opening the app at 11pm. The strongest argument, and it's real.
Honest affordance. A grabber tells the truth ("a sheet you can pull"); it teaches itself, where a top-corner word or an avatar-as-settings does not.
Scales to the future for free. The two-detent sheet IS the places launcher: medium = choose (This circle / For you / Together), large = do the work. The handle never changes as the destination matures.
Native + familiar. Built on the OS sheet primitive (detents, grabber, rubber-banding), so it feels like iOS, not a custom panel.
Frees the top. The top stays clean for identity and the badge-free Care heart.
Cons (honest)
It's the audit's risk made literal. A persistent bottom affordance is formally a one-item dock, and a one-item dock is the seed of a tab bar. The guardrails, not the choice, are what hold the line.
Permanence taxes the calm. A caught-up home says "go live your life"; a standing affordance gently contradicts that on every glance. The disciplined-peek + teach-once label shrink the cost, never quite to zero.
The peek is the soft underbelly. "A faint sheet edge" is one iteration from showing a row, then a label, then a count. It must be held to chrome-only forever.
Real home-gesture collision. A bottom-center upward drag competes with the system swipe-up. Tap-primary + an offset-up drag zone defuses it but does not erase it.
It displaced Self-Care to the top-right. Relocating a sacred element to free the bottom is a tell that the bottom is contested; verify Self-Care didn't degrade.
vs Option 2: Option 3 wins the usability test (reach, discovery); Option 2 wins the canon (zero standing furniture). Option 3's advantage concentrates at first discovery; the calm-cost recurs across thousands of later glances.
The guardrails that make it safe (the one-door ADR)
One-door law: the bottom affordance is permanently one handle to one Manage sheet. No second item ever sits beside it; any future "second thing" goes inside the sheet. Not relitigable.
Ban state on the handle, absolutely: no badge, count, dot, color change, pulse, or relabel, in any state, ever. It looks identical whether ten things wait or zero. What's waiting is carried on the MADDY card (arbitrated, vanishing), never advertised at the bottom.
Peek is chrome-only, forever: at rest, no sheet edge at all; a hint of chrome only on touch-intent or first sessions, never a row/label/preview from inside.
Teach-once-then-recede: the "Manage" label fades after the first sessions to the floor of perceptibility.
Tap primary, drag secondary, with the drag hit-region starting above the home-indicator inset so it never fights the system gesture.
Dismiss returns home, never the launcher; all motion gated on Reduce Motion; full a11y (one VoiceOver element, Dynamic Type reflow to a single column, color-independent by shape); the hard-day Care veil dims the handle inert so the only invitations are rest and Care.
Before / After · the confidence reskin
Same warmth, same logic, a more confident room
Before is today's Calm-room skin (pastel ambient gradient, a breathing cartoon Pip narrating your card, emoji-as-icons, soft oversized forms). After is the Things room our own canon assigns the caregiver: warm-neutral surface, hairlines, Lexend weight for authority, line icons, the system's own assured voice, no mascot on your card. The copy and the load-carrying logic are unchanged. Only the vessel changes.
Home · caught up
MaddySelf-Care
MADDY
🐢
Maddy is good
Nothing needs you right now. I'll find you if that changes. 🤍
🌸
YOU
A minute for you, Jeremy?
🧘Relax
🎧Sounds
🌿Ground
💗
BEFORE · the Calm room
Calm, but cute
Pastel gradient, a breathing turtle speaking as your narrator, emoji care tiles, soft rounded cards. It performs calm but asks you to trust a character, not an instrument.
🌸 Maddy's circle Self-Care
MADDY
🐢Good today
Nothing needs you right now. You'll get a notification the moment anything does.
Maddy has earned $14this week, 3 things recognized
Manage
AFTER · the Things room
Calm, and in control
Warm-neutral surface, hairlines, her state in firm Lexend, a small static Pip (the bridge, not the narrator), and the system's own voice making a real promise. One precise figure says the contingency is actually running.
Care · for you
Back
For you, Jeremy.
Supporting is heavy work. This part is yours.
🧘Breathe
🌿Ground
🎧Sounds
Good to know
Reward that a need got met, not how "normal" it looked.
BEFORE · the Calm room
The Subject's care, recolored
Rose gradient, emoji tiles, a soft pastel "good to know" card. It reads like the child's screen handed to the parent.
Back
For you, Jeremy.
Supporting is heavy work. This part is yours.
BreatheA one-minute reset
GroundFive senses, slow
SoundsPlays while you work
Good to know
Reward that a need got met, not how "normal" it looked. It keeps tasks honest to who she is.
AFTER · the Things room
Clearly the parent's room
Warm-neutral, line icons, a tight inset list, the title in firm Lexend. Same warm copy, but it reads as a tool built for a grown adult under real load.