GuardNILState of the App

What we are launching with

The family agreement.

This is the deal. You write down what your child will work on and how much money backs it. Then everything else in the app points at this one document.

What this part does

Most families already have this agreement. It just lives in someone's head. Keep your grades up and we will help with the car. Do your chores and you get your allowance. The trouble is that nobody wrote it down, so by month three everyone remembers it differently.

The family agreement turns that promise into something you can both look at. It says what counts, how often, and what it is worth.

This is not a legal contract

We call it a contract inside the app because that is what it feels like to a family. It is not a legal document. Nobody can be sued over it. It is a shared plan you can change whenever you want.

How you build it, step by step

You build it in a step-by-step form during setup. Each screen asks one thing. There is no free typing box where you can write anything you want.

  1. 1

    Tell us about your child.

    Name, birthday, and how they would like to be referred to. See the birthday question below, because this is the one part of the flow we are not happy with yet.
  2. 2

    Pick their sports.

    You can add as many as you like.
  3. 3

    Say what you hope for them.

    A few choices from a list. This shapes the wording of the agreement, nothing more.
  4. 4

    Set the monthly amount.

    This is the ceiling. It is the most that can be paid out in a month, no matter what happens. You pick it, and you can change it later.
  5. 5

    Choose what counts, one pillar at a time.

    Five screens, one for each of the five pillars: Community, Character, Financial Literacy, Academics, and Performance. Each has a list of options to pick from, and some ask how often. The five pillars are explained on their own page.
  6. 6

    Choose where the money goes.

    Savings buckets, like a college fund, a first car, an investment, or spending money. You pick at least one.
  7. 7

    Choose how often it pays.

    Weekly, every two weeks, or monthly.
  8. 8

    Read the summary and turn it on.

    The last screen shows the whole agreement in one view. Nothing is saved as a live agreement until you press the button on this screen.

There is a second way to build it, and it is off by default

We also built a chat version, where an AI asks the questions in conversation instead of on forms. It is turned off by default. A family setting up today gets the step-by-step form.

We are saying so because our own older write-up described the chat version as the way it works, and a reviewer opening the app would have seen forms. The setting that controls this is called PILLAR_WIZARD_ONBOARDING_ENABLED.

What data this part touches

  • What
    Your child's first and last name
    Who typed it
    You
    Where it lives
    The saved agreement.
  • What
    Your child's birthday
    Who typed it
    You
    Where it lives
    The saved agreement. See the section below.
  • What
    How your child should be referred to
    Who typed it
    You
    Where it lives
    Used only to pick the right words in a written note. If you skip it, we write "they."
  • What
    Your child's sports
    Who typed it
    You
    Where it lives
    The saved agreement.
  • What
    The monthly amount and how often it pays
    Who typed it
    You
    Where it lives
    The saved agreement.
  • What
    Which options you picked in each pillar
    Who typed it
    You
    Where it lives
    The saved agreement.
  • What
    A grade goal, if you set one
    Who typed it
    You
    Where it lives
    A number you choose yourself, like keeping a B average. It is a target the two of you agreed, typed by you, and it stays a number in your own account.
  • What
    A draft while you are still working
    Who typed it
    You
    Where it lives
    Saved as you go so you can close the tab and come back. Column name draft_contract_template.

Every one of these was typed by you. Your child did not type any of it and cannot see this screen.

The birthday question, stated plainly

This is a gap and we are not going to hide it

Our own product write-up said we never store a child's exact date of birth, only an age range. We checked the code. That is not true today.

The setup form asks you for your child's exact birthday and saves it. We built a tool that turns an exact birthday into an age range and throws the exact date away for children under 13. But that tool is wired to run at the end of a sign-up that a child completes, and no child ever completes one, so the tool never runs.

Result: if you set up an agreement for a nine year old today, we store their exact birthday. That is more than we said we keep and more than we want to keep.

We are telling you before you find it. This is on our fix list, and the fix is small: run the same age-range tool on the birthday a parent types. Until that ships, treat the exact birthday as data we hold.

One more thing in the same area, and it has the same shape. The form also asks for your child's email address, and we save that too. We have no use for it, we should not be asking for it, and it is on the same fix list. Both of these are on our compliance page.

What a parent sees

  • A setup form of about twelve short screens, one question each, with a progress bar.
  • A summary screen before anything goes live.
  • The finished agreement on your dashboard, with each pillar shown as its own card.
  • A way to come back and change it.

If something goes wrong

You close the tab halfway through

Nothing is lost. Your answers are saved as a draft as you go. You come back to the same place.

You typed the wrong amount

You can change the agreement. Changing it does not reach backwards and change a payment that already went through, because payment records cannot be edited by anyone once they are written.

You never finish it

You cannot get to the rest of the app until the agreement is finished. That is on purpose. An app that tracks progress against an agreement that does not exist would show you nothing but empty boxes.