Daily loop — hybrid micro check-ins + evening session
D-021: Daily loop — hybrid micro check-ins + evening session
Pick 3 from the 2026-05-21 vision verification session. Pillar 1 ratifies walking as the resource source but says nothing about engagement cadence. D-018 implies a planning-heavy spend session — ~30% combat, ~20% craft, ~10% per allocation all need real consideration — but never names when. D-020 implies the Walker initiates combat at a chosen moment, but never says which. D-021 closes the cadence question: hybrid micro + evening, canonical.
Borderline D-level (could be joint B-level under ui-designer + mechanics-designer), kept at D because forthcoming round-4 Q&A topics (notifications, onboarding, accessibility) will reference the cadence directly and need a canon anchor.
1. Hybrid cadence = 3-5 micro check-ins + 1 evening session
| Cadence | Frequency | Duration | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Micro check-in | 3-5 per day, during the walking day | ~5 minutes each | Step-sync (HealthKit / Health Connect pull), pool inspection (D-020 tropy queue), quest-state nudges, low-touch quest interactions, notification-triggered glances (if/when notifications are configured per §3) |
| Evening session | 1 per day | ~20-40 minutes | Combat resolution (D-020), craft attempts (D-018 sink), tree allocation (D-018 sink + D-016 keystone unlocks), quest-arc planning, faction-rep review |
Numbers are shape-level — a 30-min commute walker may do 2 micros + evening; a 15k-step day-walker may do 6 micros + evening. The canonical envelope is “several micros, one evening” — not a hard count.
2. App supports off-pattern play
The app MUST function for pure-evening (the player checks in once at 8pm, sees the day’s accumulated Energy + tropy pool, plays the session) and pure-micro (the player only touches the app during walks, never sits down for a long session). Hybrid is the canonical engagement model; neither extreme is degraded or punished.
3. Notifications are NOT prescriptive
D-021 does NOT mandate push notifications for either window. Notification cadence, quiet hours, and time-of-day suggestions are W-level (ui-designer + tech-architect, post-D-021). D-021 only sets the cadence the app is designed around; whether the app actively reminds the player is a separate decision.
4. Streaks are agnostic of micro/evening split
Per D-007 §2 (streak = per-day attestation; decays on missed attested walks), streak math is unaffected by whether the Walker did 5 micros or 1 evening or any combination. A day with attested walking counts; the engagement pattern within the day does not factor in. This protects pure-evening and pure-micro players from streak penalties they did not earn.
What D-021 does NOT decide (delegated)
- Notification timing / quiet hours / channel — W-level (ui-designer + tech-architect).
- Onboarding cadence-teaching flow (how the app introduces the hybrid pattern to a new Walker) — ui-designer.
- “Today’s check-ins” UI widget — ui-designer; D-021 does not mandate one.
- Whether the app explicitly recommends evening time-of-day (e.g. “8pm planning session”) or leaves it user-defined — ui-designer + game-director joint call.
- Whether evening-session length cap exists (UX nudge at 40 min) — B-level (ui-designer).
- Whether a “micro completion” rewards anything separate from the underlying actions — B-level (mechanics-designer); D-021 says NO by default (per §4 streak-agnostic).
- Accessibility variants (mobility-impaired walker / indoor mode — round-4 Q&A topic) — open D-level question, deferred.
- Whether pure-micro players have a streamlined combat initiation flow that honors D-020 §4 (deliberate “I accept the risk-reward” initiation with badge visible before commit) within a 5-minute window — W-level (ui-designer + mechanics-designer joint). §2 promises pure-micro is not degraded; the specific UX for fitting D-020’s deliberate-commit flow into a micro window is downstream design.
Rejected alternatives
- Pure evening session — collapses the app into a planning tool with walking as back-end currency. Walking becomes friction; the Walker checks in only to spend. Contradicts Pillar 1’s intent — walking is the experience, not just the supply line.
- Pure micro check-ins — no place for the heavy actions D-018 + D-020 require. Combat is ~30% of a daily budget; the player needs uninterrupted thinking time to choose a
keystone-readyvseasytrop, review the tree, consider craft re-rolls. Fragments heavy actions into incoherent bursts. - Single daily check-in — collapses both into one; the player either walks without app engagement (kills Pillar 1’s feedback loop) or sits at the app without walking (kills the walking-RPG premise).
- Forced cadence via locks (e.g. tree allocation only available in evening window) — punishes off-pattern players, contradicts §2.
Reasoning
Hybrid is the only pattern where: walking and engagement co-occur (Pillar 1 honored), heavy actions get the thinking time they need (D-018 + D-020 honored), off-pattern play is supported (player autonomy honored), and streaks stay clean (D-007 §2 honored). The “several micros, one evening” shape mirrors PoE’s natural session rhythm (atlas-tier prep in long sessions, quick map-pool maintenance between) — the walking surface provides the equivalent of the between-session activity at zero engagement cost.
Source: pick 3 from ops/memory/vision-qa-2026-05-21.md. Triage by game-director (2026-05-21 session). Pre-ratification recon per [[feedback-decide-triage-recon]] confirmed “daily” / “session” / “loop” have zero collision with existing data layer (daily exists only as a QuestType enum value — separate concept).